In the Ukraine crisis, Russia reacted to the US offer for dialogue with restraint. Foreign Minister Lavrov said Russia’s demand for security guarantees had gone unanswered. He did not rule out further talks.

“There is no positive answer to the main question,” but “there is a reaction that gives hope for the start of serious talks on secondary issues,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Lavrov criticized the fact that the US had not yet given a positive answer to the primary Russian demand for guarantees that NATO would not expand further east.

At the same time, the Foreign Ministry reiterated that Russia has no intention of attacking anyone. The mere thought of a war between Russia and Ukraine was unacceptable.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reportedly said Russian views had not been taken into account. The responses from the US and NATO provided “hardly any reason for optimism,” he said. However, there were “always prospects for continuing a dialogue”.

The documents, which the US government handed over in coordination with its NATO allies, are in the hands of President Vladimir Putin, Peskov said. “We should not make hasty assessments, an analysis takes time.”

The US and NATO had previously reaffirmed their willingness to engage in dialogue and called for the conflict to be resolved through diplomatic channels. The Russian government was handed a written response from the US government to the draft bilateral agreement on the security guarantees required from Russia.

The United States had rejected central demands from Russia. NATO’s open door to possible candidate countries such as Ukraine and the military alliance’s presence in Eastern Europe were core principles to which the US has committed itself and will not be relinquished, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “There is no change, and there will be no change,” Blinken reiterated.

Image by UN Geneva (Flickr)/Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)