The United States did not react in vain to the warnings of the Russian leadership about the unacceptability and further expansion of NATO. This was announced on Tuesday, August 30, by the American economist Jeffrey Sachs on the air of a telecast Democracy Now!.
“President (of Russia Vladimir) Putin has been repeating for years: “Don’t drag NATO to the Black Sea, Ukraine and Georgia.” Moscow warned: “Do not surround us, do not threaten us”, called for an agreement. But those calls were rejected in Washington,” Sacks said.
He also noted that such US behavior is not something new, but began more than thirty years ago, after the collapse of the USSR. The expert called the result of this strategy deplorable. According to him, this led to the complete militarization of US foreign policy.
In conclusion, the economist added that the currently observed aggravation in Ukraine could have been avoided if Washington decided to resolve the issue through diplomacy.
Earlier Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia was no longer satisfied with Geneva as a platform for bilateral contacts with the United States.
As the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said in turn, at the moment there are signals about the resumption of the negotiation process with Washington on START, but discussions should take place without favors.
On August 23, US State Department spokesman Ned Price announced the continuation of cooperation between Washington and Moscow under the START-3 treaty and stated that there were no alternatives to this agreement.
After Moscow and Washington extended the START Treaty for another five years in February 2021, the question arose of what would replace this document. In June 2021, at a meeting in Geneva, Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden decided to launch a bilateral dialogue on strategic stability. The parties held two rounds of consultations in Geneva. Soon they were transformed into negotiations on security guarantees, but after Russia launched a special operation in Ukraine, the United States announced the suspension of the dialogue.
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