West must give Russia security guarantees "now" — Putin

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. It is the NATO countries that must provide security guarantees to Russia, and not the other way round, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the customary year-end news conference on Thursday. Asked by a SkyNews correspondent what guarantees Russia might provide it would not attack Ukraine or any other sovereign state, the Russian leader said that it was not Russia that created threats to other countries. "Have we approached the borders of the United States or Britain? They have approached ours. And now they say ‘Ukraine will be a NATO member.’ Consequently, there will emerge [their weapon] systems," he explained. "You are demanding some guarantees from me. But it is you that must provide guarantees. You must do that at once, now, and not keep talking about this for decades," Putin said. He stressed that Russia was "outrageously deceived" when it was told in the 1990s that NATO would not expand eastwards. "’Not an inch towards the east’, we were told in the 1990s. And what? They cheated us. They outrageously deceived us: five waves of NATO’s expansion. Now the corresponding systems are emerging in Romania and Poland," Putin said. On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry made public two draft agreements on steps to be taken by the United States and NATO to provide legal security guarantees. Earlier, Putin urged NATO to enter into meaningful negotiations on reliable and long-term security guarantees for Russia. He stressed that Moscow needed legal guarantees on paper because previously the Western counterparts had defaulted on the corresponding verbal promises. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media presidential aide Yury Ushakov had notified the US presidential national security advisor Jake Sullivan Moscow was prepared to enter into negotiations on draft security treaties at once. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov will represent Russia at the consultations. Read more