BERLIN, December 29. /TASS/. Russian Ambassador to Berlin Sergey Nechaev believes that the discussion on weapons supplies to Ukraine illustrates the necessity of Russia’s security guarantees, the diplomat said in an interview with the DPA news agency on Wednesday.

"In our view, the militarization of Ukraine is absolutely harmful and inappropriate," Nechaev noted, adding that "all steps in this direction will be counterproductive." "These considerations [about the possibility of supplying arms to Kiev] serve as more proof that Russia needs security guarantees and we demand that these security guarantees be enshrined in international law," the diplomat stressed.

In the summer, Robert Habeck, co-leader of the German party Alliance 90/The Greens, came out in favor of shipping defensive weapons to Kiev, thereby contradicting the party’s election program, which restricted exporting European weapons "to regions where a war is in progress." Heiko Maas, then German Foreign Minister, said that this would not contribute to resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Last week, future CDU Chairperson Friedrich Merz announced that Ukraine’s requests for such weapons were "without a doubt legitimate in view of the Russian army’s massive build-up of troops on its eastern border."

On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry released two draft documents on ensuring legal security guarantees from the United States and NATO. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on NATO to start substantive negotiations in order to provide Russia with reliable and long-term security guarantees. The head of state clarified that Russia needs legal guarantees, since the promises previously made by its Western colleagues had not been fulfilled. As Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov told White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan that Moscow was ready to immediately start negotiations on the draft documents concerning the security guarantees. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov will represent Russia during the negotiations on this topic.