WASHINGTON, Feb 20 - RIA Novosti. NATO is expanding, and when Russia reduces the number of troops in Kaliningrad, no one will even say thank you, said Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov.
"You will see that we have withdrawn troops from various regions that are close to the Baltic and Eastern European. We have withdrawn a significant number of military personnel from the Kaliningrad region, and no one even said thank you," Antonov said in an interview with CBS. He stressed that at the same time, NATO is expanding.
On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated the need for the United States and NATO to take Russia's security requirements seriously.
At the end of 2021, Russia published drafts of a treaty with the United States and an agreement with NATO on security guarantees. Moscow, in particular, demands from Western partners legal guarantees against further expansion of NATO to the east, from joining the bloc of Ukraine and from the creation of military bases in post-Soviet countries. The proposals also contain a clause on the non-deployment of NATO strike weapons at the borders of Russia and the withdrawal of alliance forces in Eastern Europe to the positions of 1997.
According to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the document reflects US concerns about Russia's actions in the security sphere and offers suggestions on areas where countries can find common ground. According to him, there are "very positive things" in the written response, the United States is ready to move forward in areas where cooperation with Russia is possible, ready to discuss common security, the response once again stressed that the United States will not compromise the principle of "open doors" of NATO.
The Russian Foreign Ministry published a response to the US reaction on Russian security guarantees, in which, in particular, it was noted that the United States did not respond to the proposal to withdraw nuclear weapons deployed outside its borders to the national territory and refuse to further deploy them outside the national territory.
