Posted on 02/18/2025 11:40:59 AM PST by JSM_Liberty
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said his country won't accept peacekeeping forces from Nato countries in Ukraine under any peace deal, following high-level talks with the US in Saudi Arabia.
"Any appearance by armed forces under some other flag does not change anything. It is of course completely unacceptable," he said.
Russia and the US said they had agreed to appoint teams to start negotiating the end of the war.
"Today is the first step of a long and difficult journey, but an important one", US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said following the meeting.
Ukraine was not invited to the talks, which its president Volodymyr Zelensky said was a "surprise". The meeting in Riyadh was the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russian and American delegations are known to have met face-to-face.
Also at the meeting in Saudi Arabia were US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, as well as Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov and the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev.
Afterwards, Lavrov said the US and Russia would appoint ambassadors to each other's countries as soon as possible and create conditions to "restore co-operation in full".
"It was a very useful conversation. We listened to each other, and we heard each other," he said.
He reiterated Russia's previous position that any expansion of the Nato defence alliance - and Ukraine joining it - would be a "direct threat" to Russia. Rubio meanwhile said he was "convinced" Russia was "willing to begin to engage in a serious process" to end the conflict.
"There has to be concessions made by all sides. We're not going to predetermine what those are."...
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
maybe we should throw out the eastern Europe members as a good faith gesture? (former soviet countries)
.note - an EU trade union is ok for them but US promised not a step towards Moscow so NATO was not ok....
NATO has not been on Russia’s border since it was founded.
Yes, it has.
Scroll down at this link, find the 1949 map of NATO and learn something fool.
https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/what-is-nato-countries-map-article-five-605022/
YOU look at your map, ‘fool’. Russia and Norway share 120 miles.
Your map doesn’t show it, but these US and Russia have shared a 4-500 nmi maritime border since the late 1800s.
Yes, Norway and these US are founding members of NATO.
Nah, Norway doesn’t count obviously. Insignificant land
Nah, Norway doesn’t count obviously. Insignificant land
The Brits and Germans sure didn’t seem to think so back in 1940.
Well then what makes Ukraine significant instead? Why don’t these US count?
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