Blunt talk….
https://www.politico.eu/article/russ...ead-end-ahead/
Russia talks buy time for Ukraine but stark disagreements signal dead-end ahead
……With all that as cover, Putin has used the threat of invasion to revisit decades-old grievances about NATO’s eastward expansion, as well as to express genuine fury over the situation in Ukraine, which despite the ongoing war in Donbass has continued to make steady progress in is integration with the EU and shows no sign of turning back to Russia.
The raw anger that the Kremlin still feels over NATO’s presence on its borders — Putin insists that the West broke a promise by allowing former Eastern bloc countries like Poland to join the alliance — was evident in Ryabkov’s remarks in Geneva on Monday.
“We underscore that for us, it’s absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine, never, never ever becomes member of NATO,” he said. “So we would favor a formal replacement — eventually at the forthcoming Madrid summit of NATO — of the Bucharest formula of 2008 that says, Ukraine will become member of NATO, with exactly the wording I mentioned now: Ukraine and Georgia will never ever become member of NATO.”
He continued, “We are fed up with loose talk, half promises, misinterpretation of what happened at different forms of negotiations behind closed doors. We do not trust the other side … We need ironclad, waterproof, bulletproof, legally binding, guarantees — not assurances, not safeguards — guarantees, with all the words — shall, must — everything that should be put in this …. Never, ever becoming a member of NATO. It’s a matter of Russia’s national security.”
Sherman was just as unequivocal in her rejection of the demand. She said the U.S. was willing to negotiate with Russia on missile deployments and on nuclear arms control, as well as to discuss limiting the scope and scale of military exercises, provided such moves were reciprocal.
But she said: “We were firm, however, in pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters for the United States. We will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s open-door policy, which has always been central to the NATO alliance. We will not forego 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, about NATO without NATO. As we say to our allies and partners, nothing about you, without you.”