Russian military armored vehicles being deployed as part of reinforcements to Russia’s Kursk region in November as a three-month-old Ukrainian counterattack gathered momentum, gaining control of an additional 28 settlements, home to more than 2,000 people. File photo Russian Defense Ministry/EPA-EFE
March 17 (UPI) — Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Monday that any peace deal with Ukraine must include “security guarantees” from the United States and NATO that Ukraine would remain neutral and not be permitted to join NATO.
Grushko told the Izvestia newspaper that Russia would insist on the assurances in line with longstanding proposals in two 2021 draft treaties that called for restricting NATO to its then 29-country membership, banning NATO forces from central and eastern Europe, a U.S. commitment to no NATO enlargement and a requirement that both countries “not implement security measures … that could undermine core security interests of the other party.”
“We will demand that ironclad, concrete security guarantees become part of this agreement. Because only through their formation will it be possible to achieve lasting peace in Ukraine and generally strengthen regional security,” he said in an interview with the newspaper which while privately owned has close ties to the Kremlin.
Grushko also appeared to double down on opposition to an “impertinent” joint-British-French proposal for an international peacekeeping force for Ukraine expressed by his boss, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, pointing out it could only happen with the agreement of both sides.
Lavrov said Wednesday that the presence of troops from any NATO country in Ukraine “in any capacity, under any flag” would be considered a direct threat to Russia that would not be tolerated.
Grushko said that the rejection of Russia’s proposals had made it clear the nature of the “military construction of the alliance and U.S. military preparations” was aimed at achieving superiority over the Russian Federation with “Ukraine the main battlefield, the theater of military operations against Russia.”
“Since 2019, the number of armed contingents on the eastern flank of the alliance has doubled. The rearmament of Europe poses no less a threat to our country,” Grushko said. “Sending peacekeepers to Ukraine is possible only if both sides come to the conclusion about such a need.”
He aded the West’s long-term planning — strategic concepts approved by NATO and being developed by the European Union as well as NATO deployments along Russia’s borders — gave no hint that it was in any way attempting to adapt to a future peace agreement.
However, Grushko said Moscow was open to parallel but separate negotiations with the European Union if Brussels signaled it was willing to enter into talks on Russia-NATO dialogue, the future architecture of European regional security and the role of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in the reaching a settlement on Ukrainian.
The OSCE, which deployed a large international monitoring mission to Ukraine in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea with a mandate from its 57 member countries to reduce tensions and promote peace, including a diplomatic solution, quit the country in March 2022 a month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
Grushko’s comments came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump‘s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, described a meeting last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss an interim 30-day cease-fire being pushed hard by Trump as “positive” and “solutions-based.”
“The two sides are a lot closer today than they were a few weeks ago. We narrowed the differences,” Witkoff said of his four hours of talks with Putin in Moscow on Thursday, stressing that Trump was “involved in every aspect and dimension of these discussions.”
Later Sunday, Trump suggested a deal was close saying he would be speaking directly to Putin on Tuesday and might have an announcement afterward.
