Russia dramatically increased its dispute with the West on Thursday: a senior diplomat refused to rule out a Russian military deployment in Cuba and Venezuela if tensions rise with U.S.
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Vice Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation in Monday’s talks with the United States in Geneva, said in televised remarks that he would “neither confirm nor exclude” the possibility that Russia might send military assets to Cuba and Venezuela if the talks fail and US pressure on Russia increases.
Negotiations in Geneva and Wednesday’s NATO-Russia meeting in Vienna failed to bridge the gap in Moscow’s security demands amid a build-up of Russian troops near Ukraine. Moscow demanded to stop the expansion of NATO and Washington.
Speaking in an interview with Russian television RTVI, Ryabkov noted that “everything depends on the action of our American counterparts,” pointing to the warning of Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow might take technical-military measures if the United States provokes the Kremlin. and features military. pressure on her.
According Riabkov, Russia He sees no reason to organize “in the next few days” a new round of negotiations with the West on Moscow’s security demands.
“Without clarifying whether there is … flexibility on the other side on important issues, there is no reason to sit at the table in the next few days, meet once more and start the same discussions,” Riabkov said.
The statement comes within the framework of a meeting in Vienna of the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the third and last sequence of an intense diplomatic agenda to defuse the risk of conflict in Ukraine.
On Monday, the Vice Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the United States and Russia, Wendy Sherman and Sergei Riabkov.
On Wednesday, NATO and Russia they held talks in Brussels, during which they found deep “differences” on security in Europe.
The United States and the European Union (EU) accuse Russia to prepare an attack once morest Ukraine, an ally of the West.
Russia It responds by accusing NATO of developing hostile activities near its borders and demanding legal security guarantees from the United States and the Atlantic Alliance.
Russia He stated that he has no “intention” to attack Ukraine, but calls for a treaty prohibiting any future NATO expansion, the non-deployment of offensive weapons near Russia and the drastic reduction of Western military cooperation and maneuvers in Eastern Europe.
“These three demands are key,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian television channel Pervyi Kanal.
This Thursday, Russia rejected a project of sanctions to the Russian president Vladimir Putin in case of invasion of Ukraine presented by important American senators.
“Sanctions once morest a head of state is a measure that would cross a limit, it would be the equivalent of a break in relations,” denounced the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov.
Source: AP / AFP
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