For weeks, Putin had silenced a possible invasion of Ukraine and made few public comments about the crisis and the build-up of tens of thousands of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border.
But at a press conference on Tuesday after a five-hour meeting in Moscow with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Russian President said: “It’s already clear — I’ve informed the Prime Minister about this — that basic Russian concerns were being ignored. insufficient account of our three most important requirements.”
Putin added that Russia has failed to take sufficient account of our three main demands regarding NATO enlargement, the renunciation of the use of assault weapon systems near Russia’s borders and the return of the [NATO] military infrastructure from the bloc in Europe to the state of 1997, when the founding act between Russia and NATO was signed.”
Diplomats from the US, Russia, Ukraine, NATO and the European Union have been embroiled in a wave of diplomatic activity in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, however, the Kremlin said that Russia had not yet sent its “key answer” to the US. “There was a confusion,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call. “It [the Russian correspondence] considered a different matter. The main answer to this issue has not been handed over, it is still being prepared.”
This is a breaking story, more to come.