Russia Says Demands Not Taken Into Account, Warns Nuclear Missile Crisis Unavoidable
By Donald Standeford, Correspondent - Follow -
Date Published: January 27, 2022 12:20PM UTC
Last Modified: January 27, 2022 02:35PM UTC
MOSCOW - Russia has responded to the written response by the United States and NATO saying that its main demands have 'not been taken into account' and warned of an unavoidable nuclear missile crisis if measures aren't taken.
The long anticipated written response delivered in person from the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) regarding Russia's security demands, as well as demands that Ukraine never be allowed into the NATO alliance was not taken well by the Kremlin.
In the response, Washington repeated its commitment to upholding NATO's Open Door Policy, which makes membership an option for sovereign nations ready and 'willing to undertake the commitments and obligations of membership'.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) delivered its own response, 'in parallel with the United States' which reiterated earlier responses to Russia.
The Open Door policy from NATO states that "The door to NATO membership remains open to other European countries which are ready and willing to undertake the commitments and obligations of membership and whose membership contributes to security in the Euro-Atlantic area".
Upon receiving the written response from the United States and NATO however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergeĭ Viktorovich Lavrov stated that there was "no positive response to the main question" referring to Russia's demands that Ukraine never be allowed into the NATO alliance.
The Russian Foreign Minister did say in a statement however that "there is a response which gives hope for the start of a serious conversation on secondary questions".
After the response was given, Vladimir Ermakov, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official warned that a nuclear missile crisis between Moscow and Washington is avoidable without measures to ensure restraint and predictability.
Ermakov put out a report saying that Russia believes the United States is setting out to deploy short and intermediate range missiles in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific region according to the report.
Regarding a nuclear missile crisis, Ryabkov had also stated in December, "You know, it could quite possibly reach that point. If comrades on the other side fail to understand us and keep doing what they are doing, we might wake up at some point to see something similar, if that’s what further developments will suggest".
"That would be a total failure of diplomacy, a failure of foreign policy. But there’s still time to try to reach an agreement based on reason" Ryabkov said.
As far as what the written response from the United States was, we do not know as Washington has asked Russia to keep the response secret, though the gist of the response has been leaked to the press, the details of the full statement are unknown.
