Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian State Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said that recent statements by NATO leaders confirm the relevance of the proposal to begin negotiations on security guarantees on Russia’s western borders
“The post-Soviet history of Russia’s relations with the collective West has shown that mere words cannot be trusted. All the ‘gentlemanly’ assurances about NATO’s non-expansion to the East have long been broken […] The reckless and extremely dangerous statements by NATO officials could really bring the world to the brink of a new confrontation”, – Slutsky said in his Telegram channel.
The deputy recalled that the North Atlantic Alliance has not only consistently annexed more and more European states of the former socialist camp, but also began to think about the deployment of nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe.
“Russia is making a concrete proposal, which is absolutely logical and timely. We are waiting for the reaction of the Alliance, but so far the position of its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is still held in the confrontational spirit of the Cold War”, – the politician stressed.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the launch of substantive talks on achieving legal guarantees of the non-expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance to the East.