MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/: It is Western countries that must give Russia security guarantees immediately and not the other way round, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual press conference on Thursday, explaining the substance of Moscow’s proposals to NATO.
NATO must halt its further expansion to the East, primarily into Ukraine. The West is putting Ukraine into the center of global security with its efforts, the Russian leader said.
TASS looks at Putin’s key statements on Moscow’s relations with the West and its interaction with Ukraine.
‘NATO outrageously cheated Moscow’
The West’s behavior is dishonest and it has gone back on its promises, the Russian leader pointed out.
"They told us in the 1990s: not an inch to the East. What is the result? They cheated us. They simply impudently cheated us with NATO’s five waves of expansion. Now the corresponding systems are appearing already in Romania and Poland," Putin said.
"Have we approached the borders of the United States or Britain? They have approached ours. And now they say ‘Ukraine will also be a NATO member.’ Consequently, their [weapon] systems will emerge there," the Russian leader said.
"You promised us not to do this. And we are told: ‘And where is it written on paper? Nowhere? That’s it then, go to hell. We don’t care about your concerns.’ And this [has been going on] for years. Every time we snapped, tried to prevent something, expressed concerns. No, [we were told] ‘Go away with your concerns. We will do what we deem necessary,’" he added.
It is not Russia that must give peace guarantees, Putin said. "But it is you that must provide guarantees. You must do that at once, now, and not keep talking about this for decades."
When the USSR disintegrated, the country split into separate parts, Putin pointed out. "Yet there is an impression that this is not enough for our partners. In their opinion, Russia is too big today… Yet even after the fall of the USSR where we have only 146 million left it is still too much."
"Representatives of corresponding American services were sitting at our military-cycle facilities, were working there," Putin continued. "Numerous advisors worked at the Russian government, including CIA staff members. What else did you need? Why was there a need to support terrorists in the North Caucasus and use manifestly terrorist organizations for attempts to disintegrate the Russian Federation?"
The ball is in the West’s court
"We must understand how our security will be ensured. That’s why, all tricks aside, we made the straightforward case that there shouldn’t be any further NATO expansion eastward," Putin said. "The ball is in their court and they should say something in response."
"We are generally seeing a positive reaction so far. Our American partners are telling us they are ready to start discussions <…> Both sides have appointed their representatives," he went on to say. "I hope the situation will develop along these lines."
"I hope that this first positive reaction and the potential beginning of the dialogue on Russia’s proposals, announced for early January, will make it possible for the sides to move forward," the Russian leader stressed.
Ukraine wants no interaction
Moscow did not resist Ukraine’s independence, although "[Soviet state founder Vladimir] Lenin and his team forcefully pushed a historical territory therein without asking its people where and how they wanted to live," Putin said.
However, now Ukraine "has declared Russians living on this territory, on their own territory, a non-indigenous people - just like the Poles, the Hungarians and the Romanians" and "they are simply squeezing Russians and the Russian-speaking population from their historical territories," he added.
The crisis emerged after a "deadly military coup" in 2014, despite the readiness of Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych to avoid it, the Russian leader said.
"How could we turn away Sevastopol and Crimea, the people who live there, and refuse to take them under our wing and provide protection to them? That’s impossible. We were put in a situation where we could not act otherwise. Similarly, could we have shown a lack of will amid the developments in the southeast, in Donbass," Putin said.
The Russian leader said that he "personally tried to discourage [former Ukrainian President Pyotr] Poroshenko from launching a military operation in Donbass. This resulted in "the encirclement, losses and the Minsk Agreements" that are now the "only possible" way towards settlement but Kiev does not want to honor them and adopts laws that run counter to these accords and wants jointly with the West to portray Russia as a party to the conflict, Putin pointed out.
"We want to build good neighborly relations with Ukraine and, moreover, we want it, I should say, at any cost and we are in fact doing everything possible in this regard," he said.
"However, how can we build these relations with the present-day administration [in Ukraine] considering what they are doing at the moment? This is practically impossible," the Russian president said.
Incumbent Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky "has found himself under the influence of radical elements, like the country’s previous leaders, after coming to power," Putin said.
"We have the impression that they are, perhaps, preparing a third military operation and are warning us in advance, ‘not to interfere, not to defend these people [the Donbass population] and if you interfere and defend them, new sanctions will follow,’" the Russian leader said.
