The second of three talks on the crisis of the concentration of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine ended without major advances this Wednesday (12) in Brussels, Belgium, as did the first, and with the secretary general of the Treaty Organization. of the North Atlantic (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, warning of the “real risk” of a war in Europe.
On Monday, American and Russian diplomats had met in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition to this and the debate at the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels this Wednesday, there will be a final conversation on Thursday (13), at a conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna, the only one of the three meetings in that Ukraine will be represented directly.
According to Reuters, Stoltenberg said after Wednesday’s meeting that the West’s military alliance was willing to hold talks with Russia on arms control and missile relocation, but would not give in to Moscow’s demand to veto a possible entry Ukraine in NATO.
Moscow also demands that there be no expansion of the alliance and that NATO military activities not be carried out in countries of the former communist bloc, which joined the organization in 1997. The United States considers these demands unacceptable.
“There is a real risk of new armed conflicts in Europe,” Stoltenberg declared. “There are significant differences between NATO allies and Russia, which will not be easy to bridge.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Moscow did not agree with the alliance’s claim that it did not pose a threat to the country and would respond symmetrically to any attempt at intimidation.
“If there is a search for vulnerabilities in the Russian defense system, there will also be a search for vulnerabilities in NATO,” Grushko said. “This is not our choice, but there will be no other way if we cannot reverse the current very dangerous course of events.”
Ukraine estimates that about 100,000 Russian troops are already concentrated on the border and fears an invasion along the lines of the annexation of Crimea and the separatist movements in the Donbass region supported by Moscow, both in 2014. The government of Vladimir Putin claims that this movement It’s just for self-defense.
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