Russia plays down plans for a Ukraine invasion during security talks with U.S.

GENEVA—American and Russian officers concluded an intense spherical of negotiations in Switzerland on Monday aimed toward discovering a diplomatic path to ease tensions as Russia threatens navy motion in Ukraine.

With Russian troops massing alongside Ukraine’s borders, U.S. and Russian diplomats made clear after an intense spherical of negotiations Monday that whereas the 2 sides would preserve speaking, they continue to be removed from settlement on assembly one another’s safety issues.

Russian officers mentioned they advised their U.S. counterparts that they had no plans to invade Ukraine, in a collection of talks that lasted almost eight hours.

“There isn't any purpose to worry some type of escalatory situation,” Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian deputy overseas minister, advised reporters after the assembly.

“The talks had been tough, lengthy, very skilled, deep, concrete, with out makes an attempt to gloss over some sharp edges,” Ryabkov mentioned. “We had the sensation that the American facet took the Russian proposals very severely and studied them deeply.”

Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. diplomat, mentioned the US was “pushing again on safety proposals which are merely nonstarters for the US,” together with Russia’s calls for that Ukraine not be admitted into NATO, and that the alliance finish its safety cooperation with Ukraine.

“We is not going to enable anybody to slam closed NATO’s open door coverage, which has at all times been central to the NATO alliance,” Sherman mentioned on a convention name with reporters. “We is not going to forgo bilateral cooperation with sovereign states that want to work with the US. And we is not going to make selections about Ukraine with out Ukraine, about Europe with out Europe, or about NATO with out NATO.”

Each side tamped down any expectations for a diplomatic breakthrough.

“Right this moment was a dialogue, a greater understanding of one another and one another’s priorities,” Sherman mentioned. “It was not what we'd name a negotiation.”

The tone of the talks “makes another optimistic,” Ryabkov mentioned, “however the principle questions are nonetheless up within the air, and we don’t see an understanding from the American facet of the need of a call in a means that satisfies us.”

Sherman mentioned the 2 sides mentioned the potential for reviving the Intermediate-Vary Nuclear Forces Treaty, which the US deserted in 2019, after years of accusing Russia of violating its phrases.

The U.S. facet raised concepts about the place U.S. and Russian intermediate-range missiles are situated, Sherman mentioned, and the US made clear that it's open to discussing “methods we will set reciprocal limits on the dimensions and scope of navy workouts and to enhance transparency about these workouts.”

The talks — the primary in a collection of discussions that may happen throughout Europe this week — revolved across the calls for for “safety ensures” from Western powers that the Kremlin made in a exceptional diplomatic offensive late final yr.

In December, Russia revealed a proposal for 2 agreements with the US and NATO that may roll again Western navy exercise in Ukraine and elsewhere in Japanese Europe, in essence reestablishing a sphere of Russian affect in what was elements of the Soviet Union.

Most of the proposals, as Sherman famous, are nonstarters for Western officers, who insist that Chilly Conflict-style areas of affect are a relic of the previous and that international locations ought to be capable to select their very own alliances.

“We didn't go there and undergo the treaty they placed on the desk,” Sherman mentioned.

Russia insists that its calls for go properly past arms management, and contain a wholesale redrawing of the safety map in Europe, which the Kremlin claims the West compelled upon a weak Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

If Russia doesn't get what it desires, President Vladimir Putin mentioned final month, the Kremlin is ready to resort to navy means to attain its goals.