Russia considers “unacceptable” even the idea that there could be a war with
Ukrainedespite the current tensions between the two countries and with the West due to the accumulation of more than 100,000 Russian soldiers on the border with the neighboring country, the Foreign Ministry declared on Thursday.
(Read here: US and NATO reject Russia’s demands on Ukraine, what comes next?)
“We have repeatedly said that our country is not going to attack anyone,” Alexei Zaitsev, deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Press and Information Department, told a news conference.
He stated: “We find even the idea of a war between our peoples unacceptable.” Zaitsev pointed out that relations between Russia and Ukraine “They continue to deteriorate, due to Kiev’s path to further confrontation with Russia.”
“There are practically no political contacts and interparliamentary and interregional cooperation is frozen,” he said.
In his opinion, “it is clear that military tensions in Europe would be reduced if NATO withdraws its forces from Eastern European countries.”
“It is what we urge, it is one of the pillars of our proposals addressed to NATO so that there are security guarantees” that the Alliance does not get closer to the Russian borders and withdraws all troops and all weapons to the position prior to 1997.
(In other news: Russia believes there is little reason for optimism in US responses.)
“We hope that the NATO countries will stop igniting the conflict in eastern Ukraine and refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of that country, which should allow Ukrainian negotiators to resolve their differences in direct dialogue,” he said. between Kiev and the pro-Russian rebels supported by Moscow, who have been fighting since 2014 in a conflict in the east of the country.
The spokesman also considered that the NATO Secretary General’s statements about the possibility of increasing NATO’s presence on the eastern flank “create a negative environment for dialogue on security guarantees.”
“This confirms that reinforcing the negotiating position with military potential has become the usual practice of the Alliance,” stressed Záitsev.
EFE
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