MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. Russia will draw up a plan for action to protect its borders depending on US and NATO replies to its security guarantee proposals, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in its answers to questions timed for Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s news conference.
"There are reasons to expect that our partners have realized the issue must not be procrastinated on. In any case, we reserve the right to devise an algorithm for further actions to ensure Russia’s interests depending on the reaction to our proposals from the United States and NATO," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
It stressed that Russia’s security guarantee proposals were a realistic vision of how it is possible "to normalize the situation in the field of European security in the long term and to create conditions for peaceful coexistence by Russia and the West."
"In the current situation, this is possibly the sole way of strengthening universal security on the continent, without harming the security of individual countries of the region," the Foreign Ministry said.
"Let us not try to forestall events. The negotiations have not begun in earnest yet. We hope that the promises our Western counterparts made at the meetings in Geneva and Brussels on January 10 and 12 respectively will be implemented. We expect that the United States and NATO will commit to paper their answer to the Russian initiative," the Foreign Ministry said.
On December 17, 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry published drafts of a treaty with the United States on security guarantees and also an agreement on measures of ensuring the security of Russia and the NATO member-states. Consultations on these issues were held in Geneva on January 10. On January 12, the Russia-NATO Council met in session in Brussels. And on January 13 Russia’s permanent representative Alexander Lukashevich presented these initiatives at a session of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.