The United States and Russia have announced January 10 security talks amid tensions in Ukraine

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Andrew Osborn

WASHINGTON / MOSCOW (Reuters) – US and Russian officials will hold security talks on January 10 to discuss concerns about military activity and to deal with tensions over Ukraine, the two countries said.

A spokesman for Biden’s administration announced the date on Monday night, saying Russia and NATO could also hold talks on January 12, with a broader meeting scheduled for January 13, including Moscow, Washington and other European countries.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov confirmed the dates on Tuesday and said he hoped talks with the United States in Geneva would begin a process that would provide Moscow with new security guarantees for the West.

These guarantees are a long-standing demand of Moscow, which has overwhelmed the West in the last two months by gathering dozens of soldiers near Ukraine.

Ryabkov said the January 12 NATO meeting would be held in Brussels, while the Vienna-based European Security and Cooperation Organization, which includes US and NATO allies, as well as Russia, said in talks on January 13. Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

CONCERNS ABOUT THE TABLE

Russia’s fear of deploying troops near Ukraine has sparked fears in the West that Moscow could take over the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine in 2014 and that Moscow may be ready for a new attack on separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine since then.

Russia has denied any wrongdoing, but said it would take “unsustainable military action” if it failed to comply with security requirements.

Moscow, concerned about the West’s call for re-arming Ukraine, said it wanted legal guarantees that NATO would not extend further east, and that some weapons of attack would not be extended to Ukraine or other neighboring countries.

The US administration has imposed economic sanctions on Russia if it attacks Ukraine. He says he cannot promise that a sovereign state like Ukraine will never join NATO.

“When we sit down to speak, Russia can put its concerns on the table, and we will also put our concerns on the table with Russia’s activities,” a White House National Security Council spokesman said. The spokesman said no decision would be taken on Ukraine without Ukraine.

“There will be areas where we can make progress, and there will be areas where we will disagree. That’s diplomacy.”

A U.S. official on condition of anonymity told Reuters that the United States would keep carrier Harry Truman in Europe instead of sending him to the Middle East for the time being.

The official said, however, that there were no plans to approach Ukraine and that despite the accumulation of Russian troops, there was still no U.S. warship in the Black Sea.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday signed a spending law that would provide, among other things, $ 300 million to support the Ukrainian armed forces and billions more to defend Europe.

Russia took over Crimea in 2014 and backed a pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that claims Kiev has lost 15,000 people who lost control of part of its territory.

The big fights ended in 2015 with a ceasefire, but there are still deadly clashes on a regular basis.