According to documents allegedly leaked to the Spanish daily El Pais, and published on Wednesday morning, the US and NATO have formally rejected Russia’s key demands regarding non-expansion of the military bloc eastward and broader European security guarantees.
However, they remain open to dialogue and have offered some areas of possible cooperation. The written responses to Moscow’s December proposals largely mirror what Western officials have said publicly during the tense standoff in Europe.
NATO blamed Russia for a “substantial, unprovoked, unjustified, and ongoing” military buildup in and around Ukraine and in Belarus. The bloc reiterated its support for “the right of other states to choose or change security arrangements,” rebuking Russia’s demand that it accept neither Ukraine nor any new members.
The US-led bloc denied that it posed a threat to Russia and argued that it had “extended the hand of friendship,” offering Moscow dialogue after the Cold War ended in the early 1990s.
No other partner has been offered a comparable relationship or a similar institutional framework. Yet Russia has broken the trust at the core of our cooperation and challenged the fundamental principles of the global and Euro-Atlantic security architecture.
“The reversal of Russia’s military buildup in and around Ukraine will be essential for substantive progress,” NATO wrote.
For its part, the bloc offered general transparency and confidence-building measures, such as exchanging briefings on each other’s military exercises, consultations, setting up a civilian hotline, and reestablishing respective missions in Moscow and Brussels.