On February 12, at the American initiative, a telephone conversation took place between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov and the US Secretary of State E. Blinken.
The Minister stressed that the propaganda campaign launched by the United States and its allies about “Russian aggression” against Ukraine pursues provocative goals, encouraging the authorities in Kiev to sabotage the Minsk agreements and destructive attempts to solve the “Donbass problem” by force.
As the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry noted, the reaction of Washington and Brussels to the drafts of the Russian-American treaty and the agreement with NATO on security guarantees submitted by us ignores the key provisions for us, first of all about the non-expansion of the alliance and the non-deployment of strike weapons systems near Russian borders. It was emphasized that these issues will take a central place in our assessment of the documents received from the United States and NATO, which will be brought to the attention of colleagues. Sergey Lavrov recalled the inadmissibility of actions that violate the commitments made at the highest level on the indivisibility of security in the Euro-Atlantic.
The foreign ministers also touched upon some topical issues of bilateral relations.
