MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/. The conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided should NATO accept Russia’s December 2021 security proposals, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Sunday.

"In an interview with the Funke media group, he (NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg - TASS) said literally that once Zelensky and his junta stop fighting, Ukraine will cease to exist but if Russia surrenders arms, there will be peace. However, Mr. Stoltenberg, naturally, prefers to keep silent about one more ‘if’ in the subjunctive mood: if the alliance had not brushed off Moscow’s proposals in the sphere of indivisible security in December 2021 and had stopped using Ukraine and an anti-Russian stronghold, the conflict could have been avoided," Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the international committee of the Russian State Duma (lower parliament house), wrote on his Telegram channel.

"Shedding responsibility and labelling have long been elements of the policy of double standards geared to establish the West’s ‘exclusiveness.’ But let me describe the real state of things: to stop the conflict in Ukraine, it will be enough for the collective West to cease supplies of lethal weapons, including cluster munitions and munitions with depleted uranium. In his case, the Ukrainian Nazi regime will not survive a day and Ukraine will live a peaceful live, recognizing that the new Russian regions and Crimea will never become its part again," he noted.

However, according to Slutsky, Stoltenberg doesn’t want peace in Ukraine, he must implement Washington and Brussels’ orders as part of the policy of containing Russia and justifying the West’s investments into the Anti-Russia project in Ukraine.

"Well, about the ‘confidence’ about Ukraine’s inevitable membership in NATO. Please rewind the tape back to December 2021 - dragging Kiev into the alliance and Ukraine’s nuclear rhetoric became one of the causes of the special military operation and drove the entire Western world to the brink of a lengthy crisis. Voters now have to pay for the greedy and unwise ambitions of politics. The question is how long they will be able to tolerate this," he added.