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| Meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. |
International Military - Always attracts attention when discussing the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. In plain view, it can be concluded that Russia is the party that attacked its neighbors, and Ukraine as the victim. Its that true?
The Russian president launched a special operation, aimed at protecting the two republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. “The purpose of your operation is to protect the two republics and ensure they are safe from threats coming from Ukrainian territory, they have been under attack by the Ukrainian regime for eight years”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Al-Arabiya News. Back in 2014, there was a coup d'etat that toppled the then pro-Russian President of Ukraine, namely Viktor Yanukovych.
According to Al-Arabiya News, the coup that took place at the time was in fact supported by US and European powers, and this resulted in greater tensions between Ukraine and Russia. Sergey Lavrov added that Russia's current military operation is a response to what NATO is doing in Ukraine, which is like building an offensive group against the Russian Federation.
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“They are armed, even capable of reaching Russian territory. New military bases are being created in the Sea of Azov, dozens of military exercises are under the auspices of NATO, and most of them are designed to the detriment of the Russian Federation. So, the purpose of Putin's special operations is to ensure that plans do not materialize,” said Sergey Lavrov.
And in fact, what Russia is doing is defensive and does not consider itself to be at war with NATO, and Western countries conclude otherwise.
Russia's peace efforts rejected by NATO
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also told Al-Arabiya News that Russia has submitted a proposal to NATO. Namely to end operations in Ukraine, but unfortunately they did not reach a point of agreement.
Lavrov said that Russia had put forward many proposals to end operations in Ukraine but could not reach an agreement with them.
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“For years we have initiated draft agreements with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or OSCE, in fact, last December we also proposed other initiatives to the US and NATO. We want to guarantee security to all countries in the Euro-Atlantic without joining any military alliance,” Sergey Lavrov told Al-Arabiya News.
But unfortunately, this peaceful effort from Russia was ignored by NATO, "Every time we start this step, they (NATO) refuse politely". Russia suggested that with a political commitment to give countries the right to choose their allies. And not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other countries.
That is, no single organization in Europe can pretend to be the dominant player in the region. NATO's response was to say that there would be no legally binding security guarantees outside of NATO.
This convinced Sergey Lavrov that the peace talks that Russia had been pursuing so far were seen as mere "pleasures". The latest evidence is that in December 2021 before launching an operation into Ukraine, Russia once again proposed a deal.
Russia has told NATO allies to "stop building tensions", on the basis of its response to Western confrontation in the east. And this attempt also ended in rejection.