Mr Blinken said the United States would not release its written response publicly “because we believe diplomacy has the best chance of success if we allow for confidential talks,” adding that the United States “hopes and expects” that the Russians will agree.
Whether they will stick is unclear: Mr Lavrov said last week after meeting Mr Blinken in Geneva that he thought the US document should be made public, Russia’s Tass news agency reported. And on Wednesday, he said his administration would describe US and NATO responses to the Russian people, even if the details were kept confidential.
According to officials familiar with the documents, responses begin with general principles, including that NATO will not withdraw its “open door” policy that any state wishing to join the alliance can attempt to do so. However, Mr Biden noted at a news conference last week that Ukraine, which struggles with democratic governance and corruption, would be ineligible for years.
The documents also make it clear that Russia will not have a veto over the presence of nuclear weapons, troops or conventional weapons in NATO countries. But they open the door to talks about reciprocal restrictions on short- and medium-range nuclear weapons, including a revival of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. And they say the United States and its allies are willing to talk about reciprocal rules to limit the size and locations of military exercises; such limits would ensure that the exercises are far from the borders and cannot be mistaken for a force gathering for an invasion.
White House officials estimated that high-level U.S. officials had met more than 180 with their European counterparts — a statistic meant to show that they’d made sure the response was developed in full coordination with America’s allies. . Ukraine’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that his country has reviewed and approved comments about its future.
Russia had been pushing for weeks for the United States to provide written answers to its demands, issued in late December, before deciding on its next course of action. Russia claims it has no plans to invade Ukraine, but US officials say the Kremlin has plans for a ground attack that could come any moment. They warn that Mr Putin could also attack Ukraine – where he has supported a separatist war since 2014 – in a more limited way.
The Kremlin remained silent on Wednesday evening, but Russian lawmakers initially responded largely negatively. Konstantin I. Kosachev, a deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, said there were “things to discuss with the United States,” although he had not seen the written response.