VIENNA/MOSCOW: Russia said on Thursday that talks with the West had so far failed to bridge fundamental differences over the Ukraine crisis and Moscow’s demands that NATO pull back from central and eastern Europe.
Russia has forced the United States and its allies to the negotiating table by assembling around 1,00,000 troops near the border with Ukraine, while denying it plans to invade.
It says after decades of NATO expansion it was determined to draw “red lines” and stop the alliance from admitting Ukraine as a member or basing missiles there.
The US says Russian demands to veto Ukrainian membership and halt NATO military activity in eastern Europe are non-starters, but it is willing to talk to Moscow about arms control, missile deployments and confidence-building measures.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that talks so far this week with the United States and NATO had yielded some “positive nuances” but this was not enough. The negotiations were initiated (for us) to receive concrete answers to concrete, fundamental questions.