Russia will not discuss with anyone the possibility of withdrawing any weapons from the territory of the Kaliningrad region. This was announced on January 16 by the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov.
“Russia will not discuss with anyone the withdrawal of any missiles, any weapons from Kaliningrad, since Kaliningrad is the territory of Russia,” he said in an interview with the TV channel CNN.
Negotiations on security guarantees have recently taken place. They went through three stages. On January 10, a meeting of the Russian and US delegations took place in Geneva. On January 12, a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council was held in Brussels, and on January 13, consultations ended at the Vienna site of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Earlier, on January 10, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said that against the backdrop of the termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Washington is open to discussing the deployment of missiles in Europe.
Prior to that, on December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry published draft agreements between Russia, the US and NATO on security guarantees. It follows from the documents that the alliance must renounce any military activity on the territory of Ukraine and other states of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Also, Russia and NATO must pledge not to create conditions that may be regarded by the other side as a threat.
The United States suspended its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on February 2, 2019, based on an alleged violation of the agreement by Russia. Washington first announced this in July 2014. According to the American administration, the Russian Federation violated the treaty by creating the 9M729 missile. Moscow has rejected these accusations, presenting a number of counterclaims, affecting, for example, elements of the US missile defense system in Europe.
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