Ukrainian officials where not invited….
Russian officials , speaking for their boss President Putin seem to be angling for the ability to reinstate the old Soviet Union …
That is a nonstarter for the the US and Europe….
American and Russian officials concluded an intense round of negotiations in Switzerland on Monday aimed at finding a diplomatic path to ease tensions as Russia threatens military action in Ukraine.
Russian officials said they told their American counterparts they had no plans to invade Ukraine, in a series of intense talks that lasted nearly eight hours. “There is no reason to expect some kind of escalatory scenario,” Sergei A. Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, told reporters after the meeting.
“The talks were difficult, long, very professional, deep, concrete, without attempts to gloss over some sharp edges,” Mr. Ryabkov said.” We had the feeling that the American side took the Russian proposals very seriously and studied them deeply.”
Wendy Sherman, the lead American diplomat, said the United States was “pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters for the United States,” including Russia’s demands that Ukraine not be admitted into NATO, and that the alliance end its security cooperation with Ukraine.
“We will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s open door policy, which has always been central to the NATO alliance,” Ms. Sherman said on a conference call with reporters. “We will not forgo bilateral cooperation with sovereign states that wish to work with the United States. And we will not make decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine, about Europe without Europe, or about NATO without NATO.”
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The talks — the first in a series of discussions that will take place across Europe this week — revolved around the demands for “security guarantees” from Western powers that the Kremlin made in a remarkable diplomatic offensive late last year.
In December, Russia published a proposal for two agreements with the United States and NATO that would roll back Western military activity in Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, in essence re-establishing a sphere of Russian influence in what used to be parts of the Soviet Union.
Many of the proposals appeared to be nonstarters for Western officials, who insist that Cold War-style regions of influence are a relic of the past and that countries should be able to choose their own alliances.
“We did not go there and go through the treaty they put on the table,” Ms. Sherman said….