Former US Ambassador McFaul demanded that Russia return Crimea and remove Iskander from the Kaliningrad region

Former US Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, in an article for The Washington Post, listed conditions that Russia must fulfill in order for the West to begin security talks with it.

According to McFaul, Russia should withdraw its military contingent from Transnistria, withdraw the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, return Crimea to Ukraine and remove Iskander missile systems and tactical nuclear weapons from the Kaliningrad region. After that, McFaul writes, the West may agree to negotiations with Moscow.

As a reminder, last week the Foreign Ministry published a draft treaty with Washington and an agreement with NATO, including provisions on mutual security guarantees in Europe, non-deployment of intermediate and shorter-range missiles in each other’s reach and refusal to further expand the alliance to the east, including through former republics of the USSR, in particular Ukraine.

McFaul said that a number of conditions in the draft agreements published by Russia were unacceptable to the West, but at the same time acknowledged that other provisions in the documents “merit discussion.” He called for excluding from the agreement the clause on non-expansion of NATO to the east and holding negotiations within the OSCE, where, in addition to Russia and the United States, other countries of the alliance, as well as Ukraine, Moldova and the countries of the Caucasus, should be represented. “We need the Helsinki 2.0 treaty,” McFaul said.

We will remind that Putin today at a press conference said that the actions of the Russian Federation regarding NATO will depend not on the progress of negotiations on guarantees, but on the basis of the requirements of the unconditional security of the Russian Federation today and in the future. According to him, Russia was “cheated, blatantly deceived” when in the 1990s they promised not to push NATO eastward. One gets the impression that even after the collapse of the USSR, the West “considers the Russian Federation too big,” the head of state said. Now it is the West that “immediately” must provide security guarantees for Russia, and not vice versa, Putin stressed.

“We just directly put the question that there should not be any NATO movement to the east. The ball is on their side, they have to answer. In general, we see a positive reaction so far, ”he said.

Putin added that a discussion with representatives of the alliance in Geneva is expected at the beginning of the year. At the same time, he spoke sharply about the “concern” expressed by the United States in connection with Moscow’s proposal not to expand NATO to the East. “You go with your concerns. We will do what we think is necessary, ”Putin said.