Russia clearly doesn’t anticipate the USA will heed its warnings about its intentions of taking military action if NATO does not stop attempting to expand right up to its borders.
Russia is doubtful that its demand to stop NATO’s eastward expansion will gain any traction, and it is highly likely the US-led bloc will simply ignore Moscow’s security concerns, the Russian Foreign Minister said on Monday.
Speaking to journalist Vladimir Solovyov, Sergey Lavrov revealed that Russia published proposals for security guarantees as a way to prevent Western nations from dismissing them, or leaking them selectively.
Experts in Moscow have noted that a contemporary American information tactic is to drop supposedly confidential negotiation points into the public sphere through “anonymous sources” feeding popular news outlets that are considered “on side.”
“We have made our initiative public, as explained by President Putin and the Foreign Ministry, because we are aware of the West’s ability to obfuscate any uncomfortable issues for them,” Lavrov explained. “We have serious doubts that the main thing in our proposals, namely the unconditional demand not to expand NATO to the east, will not be swept under the carpet.”
Lavrov’s comments come almost two weeks after Moscow publicly released two draft documents with a list of promises it wants to obtain from the US and NATO. As well as pledges that the bloc won’t expand eastwards, the proposed treaties also include the end of Western cooperation with post-Soviet countries, the removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe, and the withdrawal of NATO troops and missiles away from the Russian border.
It increasingly looks as if the neocons will finally get their revenge war with Russia. Given the confident way in which Russia and China are addressing these US-created crises, the outcome may not be anything resembling the one that the neocons expected.