On Wednesday members of North Atlantic military alliance will meet with top Russian officials in Belgium to discuss ways to prevent a fresh conflict over Ukraine.
The NATO-Russia Council meeting in Brussels follows a series of high-stakes talks between Washington and Moscow.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, meanwhile, reaffirmed Moscow’s stance that it is “absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine never ever becomes a member of NATO.”
Last month, Moscow released two draft documents with a list of assurances it wants to obtain from Washington and the military bloc. The proposals include pledges calling for the bloc to rule out expansion further eastwards, as well as a written guarantee that Kiev’s wishes to join NATO will not be granted, and that the organization's troops will not participate in any joint military activity in the country, or in other Eastern European, South Caucasian, and Central Asian states.
“I don’t think we can expect that these meetings will solve all the issues,” explained NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg during a press briefing this week.
“What we are hoping for is that we can agree on a way forward, that we can agree on a series of meetings, that we can agree on a process,” Stoltenberg added.
