In his address to the Valdai International Discussion Club yesterday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov reported that Washington does not rule out further discussing the issue of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles but wants this dialogue to be contingent on some actions by Russia on its territory regarding the crisis in Ukraine. “With regard to the post-INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty]. Washington now does not exclude returning to the discussion of this issue but for starters they would like to better understand the substance of our approach. Even this stance suggests that we should take some actions on our territory relative to Ukraine,” he said.
Moscow took note of the statement made at the Geneva talks, that the United States had no intention of creating land-based nuclear-tipped intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, Ryabkov said. “We heard calls to return to the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) and agree on updating the Vienna document on confidence-building measures. We asked the Americans all these questions and they gave us all these answers.”
On Ukraine, he said that if the U.S. vows that it won’t ever vote to accept Ukraine and some other countries to NATO, then Russia will consider this option as an alternative. “There’s a well-known statement from the Bucharest summit of 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia will be NATO members—that must be ruled out,” he said. “That must be replaced by the understanding that won’t ever happen.”
