(02 Feb 2022)

The United States and NATO reject signing a bilateral agreement on security in Europe with Russia and also closing the door on the future incorporation of Ukraine into the Atlantic Alliance. Those were two of the main demands presented by Moscow to put an end to the crisis in Ukraine at a moment of maximum tension between Russia and the West and that threatened Euro-Atlantic security. By contrast, both Washington and the Alliance offer Putin negotiations on disarmament agreements and trust-building measures in different forums – such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the US-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue, and the NATO-Russia Council – the success of which are conditioned on the start of a deescalation of the Russian military threat to Ukraine.