MOSCOW, December 2. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a meeting in Stockholm that Russia would resort to reciprocal measures in case Moscow’s interests were ignored in regard to NATO’s further deployment of forces, the Russian ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
"It was particularly stressed that an ignorance of Russia’s legal concerns, involvement of Ukraine in US geopolitical games against the background of NATO forces deployment in the approximate vicinity of our borders would entail the most serious consequences and would force to resort to reciprocal measures in order to straighten out the military and strategic balance," the statement reads.
Lavrov stated at a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier in the day: "And let us not forget about the principle of indivisible security in the OSCE [the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] and the Russia-NATO Council, which says that no state must strengthen its security at the expense of other countries’ security."
"NATO’s further expansion to the East will clearly affect the vital interests of our security," he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on Wednesday opening detailed talks on legal guarantees to stop NATO’s eastward expansion. "Our diplomats are currently faced with the prime task of obtaining reliable and long-term security guarantees," Putin said speaking at a ceremony of receiving foreign ambassadors’ credentials in Moscow on December 1.
"Within the frames of the dialogue with the United States and its allies, we will be insisting on concrete agreements, which exclude any possible NATO expansion to the East, and the deployment of any weapons that threaten us and are deployed in the approximate vicinity of the Russian territory," the Russian president stated.
