The negotiations between the United States and Russia regarding security guarantees, their respective military activity, and confront rising tensions over Ukraine, will take place on January 10, a spokesperson for the Biden administration announced late on Monday.
He also noted that Russia and NATO were also likely to hold talks on January 12, with a broader meeting set for Jan. 13 that would involve the Vienna-based OSCE – which includes the US and its NATO allies – Ukraine and other former Soviet states.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also confirmed the dates on Tuesday, noting that instead of the implied discussion of both Ukraine and arms control on the agenda of negotiations, they should discuss the draft agreements presented by Russia.
According to Ryabkov, the Jan. 12 meeting would be held in Brussels.
The sides are expected to discuss Moscow’s security guarantee proposals that include limits to troop, warship, and aircraft deployments, avoiding placement of intermediate- and short-range missiles where they might threaten either party as well as NATO’s guarantees of non-expansion into Ukraine and canceling military cooperation with the ex-Soviet republics.
Washington was previously urged by Moscow to start the talks as soon as possible to stop further escalation after the West was alarmed by massing tens of thousands of Russian troops near Ukraine in the past two months.
Russia has refused the raised concerns that it may be plotting an imminent invasion of Ukraine, underscoring that it’s Ukraine’s growing ties with NATO and the expansion of the US-headed transatlantic security alliance that has been undermining the security situation in the region.
Comparing the situation to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the world came to the brink of nuclear war, Moscow claimed that those developments threaten Russia and contravene assurances given to it by the West following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
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