Representatives of Russia and NATO are meeting in Brussels on Wednesday for high-level talks that seek to defuse mounting tensions over Moscow’s military build-up near the border with Ukraine.
The meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) occurs just as the two sides are at a standstill. While also increasing fears that Russia may launch an invasion of Ukraine.
Although Moscow has dismissed such accusations, Russia already has 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine. And, on the eve of the talks, the military began live-fire training exercises in regions near the border.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, right, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, center, arrive at the NATO-Russia Council at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, January 12 of 2022.
The United States, NATO and their allies are pressing Russia to ease the tensions of the situation. For its part, Moscow has demanded security guarantees from the US and NATO.
Among them, a binding promise that NATO will not expand further east and will not allow Ukraine to join the military alliance. Something that the organization is not willing to do.
“At this point, let me be very, very clear: no one is suggesting that we alter NATO’s policy on enlargement,” US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told Citizen Free Press on Tuesday.
What will the meeting between Russia and NATO be like?
Instead of being viewed as a bilateral meeting between NATO and Russia, this Wednesday’s meeting will have each of the 30 NATO member states and Russia represented equally, in a forum of 31. The meeting is the second of three key engagements between the West and Russia this week.
On Monday, representatives of the US and Russia sat in Geneva for more than seven hours of debate.
The marathon talks, which the White House described as “frank and direct,” produced no breakthrough. Another round of talks between Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which the United States is a member, is scheduled for Thursday in Vienna.
Ukraine said Tuesday that it was confident that the United States and other NATO countries would not make a decision “about the fate” of the country “behind our backs” during the meetings.