DONETSK, UKRAINE – FEBRUARY 17: (—-EDITORIAL USE ONLY â MANDATORY CREDIT – “UKRAINIAN CHIEF OF GENERAL STAFF / HANDOUT” – NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS – DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS—-) A view from the shelled kindergarten in eastern Ukraine on February 17, 2022. (Photo by Ukrainian Chief of General Staff / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Gav Don trained as an officer in the Royal Navy and has a degree in international law. He grew a global energy intelligence business over 25 years and now specialises in geopolitical analysis, focusing on the interactions between politics, law, energy and armed force.
Ukrainian authorities over the weekend claimed that Russian forces had attacked a nursery school 14 km north-east of the centre of Luhansk. The claim was supported by two photographs of damage to the school, showing a purported shell hole in the ground floor wall. Western news channels immediately picked up the claim, describing it as a Russian provocation designed to justify a forthcoming Russian response. UK open source channel Bellingcat added to the news flow with an analysis which was intended to corroborate the trajectory and source of the shell.
Close examination of the photographs of the damage quickly reveals the Ukrainian government claim and the Bellingcat analysis to be comprehensively false.
Starting inside the damaged nursery room, the photograph shows a hole roughly one metre across. Bricks from the wall are heaped from the foot of the wall to three metres into the room. Below the hole stands a wooden cupboard containing footballs. The cupboard remains standing, and a handful of footballs rests both in the cupboard and at the edge of the rubble pile.
Apart from the rubble, the room has suffered no damage. There are no signs of a high explosive detonation of any kind. The wall coverings are undamaged. A quantity of brick rubble rests precariously on the lower ledge of the hole, where even a very small impact shock would dislodge it. The window one metre from the centre of the hole is undamaged. This was clearly not a high-energy event. The internal walls are not deformed outwards in any way by blast, and there is no evidence of any heat or fire damage.
These features show clearly that there was no explosion inside the room. It is possible that an incoming shell might fail to detonate, for one of several reasons. However, the location of the footballs on the shelves of the cupboard below the hole suggests that there was no impact shock, and the photograph does not show an undetonated shell or mortar round. A high-speed shell striking a building usually punches a small entry hole, not much larger than its own diameter, not a one metre rubble hole.
In contrast, the damage shown is completely consistent with damage to the wall inflicted from outside, by a standard road-worker’s tractor-mounted pneumatic drill. When a drill is applied to a brick wall as it penetrates and moves a brick, the moving brick will carry adjacent bricks with it, forming exactly the shallow V-shaped hole the photograph displays. A drill-attack also leaves a quantity of rubble on the bottom edge of the hole (unless someone takes the trouble to remove it, which clearly did not happen here). Here rubble appears to have been moved by hand from near the hole a little further into the room, to simulate the effects of shock, and footballs placed on top of the rubble pile.
Moving to the outside photograph of the building, approximately three metres square of the render has been removed. Looking at the lower part of the render, there are clear signs that it has been pulled away from the building, as the edges of the damage area face outwards. The same outward trending damage is visible to the left of the neat square one-metre hole in the wall below. The render appears to have been pulled or grabbed to remove it, in an uneven fashion, as the damage on one side is 1.5 metres higher than the damage on the other.
On the ground at the foot of the wall the removed render and insulation has been scattered up to ten metres laterally, at 90 degrees from the hole, and there is an area at the foot of the wall with less rubbish scatter – probably the area where the excavator was placed.
If a high explosive detonation had occurred outside the wall (as it would on impact with a graze fuze) the wall would have deformed inwards, all adjacent glass would have shattered, there would be clear marks of fire and shrapnel spatter on the wall exterior, and rubble would be scattered uniformly in an arc of roughly 45 degrees away from the wall, as well as large quantities of rubble accompanied by fire and shock damage inside.
Taking this evidence as a whole, it is unarguable that the building was not attacked by a shell.
Ukrainian reports claim that the attack happened while the nursery was occupied by children and teachers, who were in another room. However, the photograph of the interior shows clearly that outside the room it is dark. There is no time stamp on the photograph, but it is likely that this photograph was the first to be taken, and was taken very shortly after the damage was inflicted, at night, when the building was unoccupied.
The nursery is located four kilometres north-east of the Contact Line, in Ukrainian-held territory. The evidence as presented strongly suggests that Ukrainian forces damaged the nursery with an excavator, probably equipped with a pneumatic drill attachment, and then released the photographs in an attempt to make a case that Russian forces had carried out an attack on an occupied children’s nursery.
That trope has been enthusiastically taken up by European and US media. Prime Minister Boris Johnson went so far as to describe it as a false flag attack designed to justify a Russian assault. He omitted, however, to clarify how an attack on a nursery in Ukraine-held territory would either motivate or justify a move by Moscow, or to explain how an attack on a Ukrainian asset on Ukrainian territory could be a false flag move by anyone other than Kyiv.
Events over the past two days within the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics are somewhat shrouded in the fog of near-war. It seems reasonably clear that the two leaders of the Republics have ordered some sort of mass evacuation of civilians from the republics to Russia, and in this context the number 700,000 has been repeated in multiple media channels. That number coincides with the number of people in the Republics who have received Russian passports. The total population of the Republics is somewhere in the region of 3.5mn.
However, bne Intellinews sources inside the republics do not corroborate a movement of this number of people. One source cited the movement of 25,000 people across the Russian border on Friday. There is a clear ambiguity as to whether the Republics have ordered women and children to leave, or have simply advised them to do so, and as to whether large numbers of people are actually evacuating.
bne Intellinews sources on the ground report that Ukrainian forces on the contact line have shelled civilian targets regularly for “years”, at intervals ranging from days to months. The rate of fire has certainly escalated. OSCE Monitoring recorded 1,413 shell and mortar detonations within the Republics on Friday, including rounds from 122-mm mortars banned under the Minsk ceasefire.
One resident of a western suburb of Donetsk (actually an ethnic west Ukrainian living in the Republic) stated that 10 shells had landed around her settlement 600 metres from the Contact Line, and that the shelling was the worst she had experienced since 2015. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle of two extremes – there is more shelling than there has been recently, but not as much as “constant”, and not aimed directly at homes or other buildings.
Shelling appears to have been “harassing” rather than aimed. Republic authorities on Saturday stated that no-one had been killed in the republics by shelling. They also claimed to have details of plans for a Ukrainian invasion of the republics, but it seems unlikely that, if they did, they would disclose that fact.
Ukrainian sources cite a smaller number of similar artillery and mortar detonations on Ukrainian territory. Sources do not report which side fired first.
With these events tension between Russia and the Western allies has reached a new and uncomfortably high level. Mainstream media have drawn a (fatuous) connection between the nursery attack and Russian plans to invade Ukraine. The connective tissue between the two appears weak at best, but both US and UK authorities are continuing to forewarn of a major attack based on (unrevealed) intelligence. There is as yet no evidence that Russian Federation troops are located in the republics, but there is clear evidence that the republics have initiated a call-up of reservists….
At the end of a special televised announcement on the evening of February 21 (Russia time), Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would formally recognize the DPR and LPR rebel states of East Ukraine as independent. He further instructed the foreign ministry to establish formal ties with the republics and for the Russian military to prepare to send a peacekeeping force to the republics. This all occurred after a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, which recommended the action.
Putin’s announcement starts around the 22 minute mark
As Paul Robinson commented right after the speech, Putin seemed frustrated that it had come to this. I agree that this was not the option that Putin wanted for the Donbas. For over six years, Russia has been pushing for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements that would have resolved the civil war by having the Kiev government grant autonomy to the Donbas. The agreement was signed by France and Germany as well as Ukraine and Russia. However, it has been clear that the Kiev government is politically unwilling to implement the agreement as written. This is largely due to the fact that any leader of Ukraine, even if he wanted to, cannot implement the agreement due to the outsized influence of the ultranationalist forces who have demonstrated their willingness to use violence to block any moves that are perceived as concessions to the Donbas residents or Russia.
It has also been clear, especially after the recent failed Normandy meeting, that Kiev will not budge on its recalcitrance regarding the Minsk Agreement and, more importantly, France and Germany are not willing to push Kiev to honor it, though they are co-signers. Washington is also not willing to do this, though it could. Apparently Moscow feels it waited long enough to realize that the Minsk Agreement is a dead end. From Moscow’s perspective, it is clear that if Kiev is unwilling to implement Minsk then the only other way of trying to head off a nasty escalation of the war in Donbas – which has lasted for eight years, has already killed thousands and in which violence has escalated in recent weeks – is for Kiev to let them go because they don’t accept them anyway. To facilitate this, Russia has recognized their independence and is taking the additional aforementioned steps in effort to protect them from any more aggression from Kiev. According to Russian media reports, it is estimated that between 100,000 and 150,000 Ukrainian troops are amassed near Donbas since December.
Another reason Russia did not want to take this option is that the Russian leadership knows perfectly well that this move will trigger the sanctions that Washington has clearly been itching to let loose. White House spokesperson Jen Psaki has already stated that economic sanctions will be taken up against any person or entity seeking to do business with the LPR and DPR. An NPR reporter has stated publicly that, on a call with reporters today, the Biden White House said it “will likely deploy sanctions against Russia tomorrow, responding to today’s “recognition gambit…” There are (as yet) unconfirmed reports that Europe will wait to see what Russia does next before implementing sanctions.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, has stated that Ukraine has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council regarding Russia’s move. The OSCE has condemned Russia’s actions in a joint statement by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office and Foreign Minister of Poland, Zbigniew Rau, OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Cederfelt and OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Secretary General Montella:
“This step is a breach of international law and fundamental OSCE principles and runs counter to the Minsk agreements.
As all OSCE participating States, Russia has undertaken commitments to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of others. We call on Russia to immediately rescind this decision.
The recognition will only fuel further tensions and will separate the populations living in these regions from the rest of their country, Ukraine.”
Below is some of the reaction in Donetsk to the news:
….Ukraine is a country where Britain consistently seeks to influence events in order to derive economic, political, and military benefits.
For example, leaked documents indicate London funded consultants to effectively market neoliberal labor “reforms” to the Ukrainian public, which would destroy employment rights and protections.
The Foreign Office also financed Ukraine’s StopFake, a purported “fact-checking” website with deep links to fascist elements in the country.
Parubiy is an avowed Adolf Hitler fan. When Parubiy visited Britain in 2018, local reporters sprang to his defence. He was implicated in a reported false flag massacre of Maidan protesters in February 2014.
Even more significantly, the Foreign Office is secretly co-opting journalists and media organizations in Kiev via funding, training, and the surreptitious production of anti-Russian, pro-Western, and pro-NATO content. “Girls on HBO…but in Ukraine” was one suggested example of programming to support in leaked internal files.
These efforts are a component of a £100 million clandestine drive by London to “weaken the Russian state’s influence” over its neighbors.
All of which is another facet of Britain’s bond with the US that has been absolutely fundamental: relations between Moscow and Washington must remain tense.
By presenting itself as a dependable bastion of European security, Britain can remain relevant globally, able to perpetually piggyback off its partner’s might.
For this reason, London was willing to circulate bunk US intelligence about an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine….
From Russian Foreign Ministry website, 2/17/22. English translation via Google Translate.
MEDIA RELEASE
February 17 this year US Ambassador John Sullivan, invited to the Russian Foreign Ministry, was given the following reaction to the previously received American response on the Russian draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees:
“ – General characteristics.
We state that the American side did not give a constructive response to the basic elements of the draft treaty with the United States prepared by the Russian side on security guarantees. We are talking about the rejection of further NATO expansion, the withdrawal of the “Bucharest formula” that “Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members”, and the rejection of the creation of military bases on the territory of states that were previously part of the USSR and are not members of the Alliance, including the use of their infrastructure for conducting any military activity, as well as the return of military capabilities, including strike capabilities, and NATO infrastructure to the state1997., when the Russia-NATO Founding Act was signed. These provisions are of fundamental importance for the Russian Federation.
The package nature of Russian proposals was ignored, from which “convenient” topics were deliberately chosen, which, in turn, were “twisted” in the direction of creating advantages for the United States and its allies. This approach, as well as the accompanying rhetoric from US officials, reinforces legitimate doubts that Washington is truly committed to fixing the European security situation.
The increasing US and NATO military activity close to Russian borders is alarming, while our red lines and core security interests, as well as Russia’s sovereign right to protect them, continue to be ignored. Ultimate demands to withdraw troops from certain areas on Russian territory, accompanied by threats of tougher sanctions, are unacceptable and undermine the prospects for reaching real agreements.
In the absence of the readiness of the American side to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees to ensure our security from the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to respond, including through the implementation of military-technical measures.
– In Ukraine.
There is no “Russian invasion” of Ukraine, which the United States and its allies have been declaring at the official level since last fall, and is not planned, so statements about “Russia’s responsibility for the escalation” cannot be regarded otherwise than as an attempt to put pressure on and devalue Russia’s proposals for security guarantees.
Mention in this context of Russian obligations under the Budapest Memorandum1994. has nothing to do with the intra-Ukrainian conflict and does not apply to circumstances resulting from the action of internal factors there. The loss of territorial integrity by the Ukrainian state is the result of the processes that have taken place within it.
The accusations of Russia contained in the American response that it “occupied Crimea” also do not stand up to scrutiny. IN2014. A coup d’etat took place in Kiev, the initiators of which, with the support of the United States and its allies, headed for the creation of a nationalist state that infringes on the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking population, as well as other “non-titular” ethnic groups. It is not surprising that in such a situation, the Crimeans voted for reunification with Russia. The decision of the people of Crimea and Sevastopol to return to the Russian Federation was made by free will in the exercise of the right to self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter. No force or threat of force was used. The issue of Crimea’s belonging is closed.
If Ukraine is accepted into NATO, there will be a real threat that the regime in Kiev will try to “return” Crimea by force, drawing in the United States and its allies, in accordance with Art. 5 of the Washington Treaty, into a direct armed conflict with Russia with all the ensuing consequences.
The thesis repeated in the US response that Russia allegedly “ignited the conflict in Donbass” is untenable. Its reasons are purely domestic in nature. The settlement is possible only through the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the “Package of Measures”, the priority and responsibility for the implementation of which are clearly defined and unanimously confirmed by UN Security Council Resolution 2202, including the United States, France and Great Britain. In paragraph 2 of this resolution, Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk are named as parties. None of these documents mentions Russia’s responsibility for the conflict in Donbas. Russia, together with the OSCE, plays the role of a mediator in the main negotiating format – the Contact Group – and together with Berlin and Paris – in the Normandy format, which formulates recommendations to the parties to the conflict and monitors their implementation.
To de-escalate the situation around Ukraine, it is fundamentally important to take the following steps. This is forcing Kiev to comply with the “Package of Measures”, stopping the supply of weapons to Ukraine, withdrawing all Western advisers and instructors from there, refusing NATO countries from any joint exercises with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and withdrawing all foreign weapons previously delivered to Kiev outside Ukrainian territory.
In this regard, we draw attention to the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin at a press conference following the talks in Moscow with French President Empress Macron on February 72022. stressed that we are open to dialogue and urge “to think about stable security conditions for all, equal for all participants in international life.”
– Configuration of forces.
We note that in its response to the Russian proposals, the US insists that progress in improving the European security situation “can be achieved only in terms of de-escalation in relation to Russia’s threatening actions against Ukraine”, which, as we understand, implies the requirement withdrawal of Russian troops from the borders of Ukraine. At the same time, the United States is ready to talk only about “mutual obligations … to refrain from deploying permanently based forces with combat missions on the territory of Ukraine” and “to consider the possibility of discussing the problem of conventional armed forces.” As for the rest, the American side passes over in silence our proposals contained in sec. 2 Article 4 and para. 1 of Article 5 of the draft bilateral treaty and states that “the current configuration of US and NATO forces is limited,
We presume that the deployment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on its territory does not and cannot affect the fundamental interests of the United States. We would like to remind you that there are no our forces on the territory of Ukraine.
At the same time, the United States and its allies were moving their military infrastructure to the east, deploying contingents in the territories of new members. They circumvented the CFE restrictions and rather loosely interpreted the provisions of the Russia-NATO Founding Act on the rejection of “additional permanent deployment of substantial combat forces.” The situation that has developed as a result of these actions is unacceptable. We insist on the withdrawal of all US armed forces and weapons deployed in CEE, SEE and the Baltics. We are convinced that the national potentials in these zones are quite sufficient. We are ready to discuss this topic on the basis of Articles 4 and 5 of the Russian draft treaty.
– The principle of indivisibility of security.
We did not see in the US response confirmation that the American side is fully committed to observing the immutable principle of the indivisibility of security. General statements about the consideration by the American side of this postulate directly contradict Washington’s unwillingness to abandon its counterproductive and destabilizing course of creating advantages for itself and its allies at the expense of Russia’s security interests. This is precisely what is happening as a result of the unrestrained implementation by the North Atlantic Alliance, with the leading role of the United States, of a policy of unrestricted geostrategic and military development of the post-Soviet space, including the territory of Ukraine, which is of a particularly sensitive nature for us. All this is happening directly on Russian borders. In this way, our red lines and core security interests are ignored and Russia’s inalienable right to provide them is denied. For us, this is, of course, unacceptable.
Additionally, we remind you that this principle is enshrined in the preamble to the Treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on measures for the further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms.2011., on the extension of which for 5 years without any exceptions the parties agreed in February last year, as well as in a number of OSCE and Russia-NATO basic documents adopted at the highest level: in the preamble of the Helsinki Final Act1975., in the Charter of Paris for a New Europe1990., Russia-NATO Founding Act1997., Istanbul Charter for European Security OSCE1999., Russia-NATO Rome Declaration2002. and the Astana Declaration of the OSCE Summit2010.
We note that the response received mentions Washington’s adherence to the concept of the indivisibility of security. But in the text it boils down to the right of states “to freely choose or change the methods of ensuring their security, including union treaties.” This freedom is not absolute and is only half of the well-known formula fixed in the Charter for European Security. Its second part requires, when exercising this right, not to “…strengthen one’s security at the expense of the security of other states.” We cannot consider the letter received from NATO dated February 10 of this year. as a response to the letter sent by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia S.V. Lavrov on January 282022. a message to US Secretary of State E. Blinken on this issue. We asked for a response in a national capacity.
– NATO’s “open door” policy.
The US reiterates its “strong support” for NATO’s “open door” policy. But it runs counter to the basic commitments made within the CSCE/OSCE, primarily the commitment “not to strengthen one’s security at the expense of the security of others.” This policy is not consistent with the guidelines of the alliance itself, which following the meeting of the NATO Foreign Minister on June 6-71991. in Copenhagen, he pledged “not to take unilateral advantages from the changed situation in Europe”, “not to threaten the legitimate interests” of other states, not to strive for their “isolation” or “drawing new dividing lines on the continent”.
We call on the United States and NATO to return to fulfilling their international obligations in the field of maintaining peace and security. We expect concrete proposals from the members of the alliance on the content and forms of legal consolidation of the renunciation of NATO’s further eastward expansion.
– Batch character of offers.
We note the readiness of the United States to work substantively on individual arms control and risk reduction measures. At the same time, they recorded that Washington had finally recognized the justification of a number of Russian proposals and initiatives in these areas that have been put forward in recent years.
At the same time, we once again draw the attention of the American side to the fact that Russia, in the documents we submitted on security guarantees, proposed to follow the path of a comprehensive long-term settlement of the unacceptable situation that continues to develop in the Euro-Atlantic region. First of all, we are talking about creating a stable foundation for a security architecture in the form of an agreement on NATO’s refusal to take further actions that harm Russia’s security. This remains a constant imperative for us. In the absence of such a strong foundation, interrelated arms control and military risk reduction measures that ensure restraint and predictability of military activity in separate areas, even if they can be agreed upon, will not be sustainable in the long term.
Thus, the Russian proposals are of a package nature and should be considered as a whole without singling out its individual components.
In this regard, we would like to focus on the lack of a constructive reaction from Washington and Brussels to the most important elements of the Russian initiative that we have clearly identified. As for arms control issues, we consider them exclusively in the general context of a comprehensive, package approach to resolving the problem of security guarantees.
– “Post START” and “security equation”.
The United States proposes “immediately” to engage in the development of “measures in the development of START” within the framework of the dialogue on strategic stability. However, at the same time, the American side is trying to fix an approach that has not been coordinated with us, which provides for focusing exclusively on nuclear weapons, regardless of the ability of certain weapons to pose a direct threat to the national territory of the other side. Such a one-sided view of things is contrary to the understandings reached at the Russian-American summit on June 162021. in Geneva on the comprehensive nature of the strategic dialogue to lay the foundation for future arms control and risk reduction measures.
Russia continues to advocate an integrated approach to strategic issues. We propose to engage in the joint development of a new “safety equation”.
A set of elements of the concept we propose, which remains fully relevant, was brought to the attention of the American side – incl. during the meetings within the framework of the strategic dialogue and in the2021. working paper for its completion.
– Deployment of nuclear weapons outside the national territory.
In its document, the United States did not react to such an element of the “package” of measures proposed by us as the withdrawal of nuclear weapons deployed outside its borders to the national territory and the refusal of their further deployment outside the national territory, and limited itself to mentioning the need to deal with the problem at the strategic dialogue platform. non-strategic nuclear weapons without taking into account the peculiarities of their deployment and other factors affecting the security of the parties.
We would like to clarify that our proposals are about solving the problem of the presence on the territory of some non-nuclear NATO states – in violation of the NPT – of US nuclear weapons that are capable of hitting targets on Russian territory. This would include the elimination of the infrastructure for the rapid deployment of such weapons in Europe, as well as the cessation of NATO training and exercises in the handling of these weapons, which involve non-nuclear NATO member states. Without removing this irritant, discussion of the topic of non-strategic nuclear weapons is impossible.
– Ground-based intermediate and shorter range missiles.
We regard this issue as one of the priority areas of the Russian-American dialogue on strategic stability. We believe that this category of weapons is a necessary component of the new “security equation” that should be worked out jointly by Russia and the United States.
We continue to proceed from the relevance of Russian initiatives in the field of “post-INF Treaty”, which are based on the idea of reciprocal verifiable moratoriums on the deployment of ground-based INF Treaty in Europe. In principle, we are open to substantive consideration of the ways of its practical implementation. At the same time, we note the continuing uncertainty in Washington’s approaches to the main parameters of potential control measures over these weapons, primarily to their coverage, which should cover all weapons of the appropriate range in nuclear and non-nuclear equipment.
It was noted that the United States is taking the Russian approach as a basis, which provides for the mutual settlement of mutual concerns in the context of the previously existing INF Treaty. The version proposed by the American side for developing our idea of mutual verification measures in relation to the Aegis Ashore complexes in Romania and Poland, as well as some facilities in the European part of Russia, can be further developed.
As emphasized in the statement of the President of Russia V.V. Putin dated October 262020. and subsequently brought to the attention of the US side on numerous occasions, potential transparency measures with respect to Russian facilities subject to agreement could include monitoring the absence of the Russian 9M729 missile there. We remind you that this step is a manifestation of goodwill, given that the characteristics of the 9M729 missile do not contradict the requirements of the former INF Treaty in any way, and that the United States has not provided any evidence that would confirm the accusations against Russia. At the same time, the American side ignored what we organized on January 23 during the period of this Treaty.2019. voluntary event to demonstrate the device and technical characteristics of the 9M729 rocket and its launcher.
– Heavy bombers and surface warships.
We note the attention of the American side to the Russian idea of additional risk mitigation measures in relation to flights of heavy bombers near the national borders of the parties. We see a subject for discussion and the potential for mutually acceptable agreements. We remind you of an equally important element of our “package” proposal concerning similar cruises of combat surface ships, which also involve serious risks.
– Military exercises and maneuvers.
The United States did not respond to the proposals contained in sec. 2 Article 4 of the Russian draft treaty. The American side, apparently, proceeds from the fact that it is possible to reduce tension in the military sphere by increasing transparency and additional measures to reduce the danger in line with the proposals of the West to modernize the Vienna Document.
We consider such an approach to be unrealistic and one-sided, aimed at “seeing through” the activities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Confidence- and security-building measures under the Vienna Document2011. appropriate for today’s environment. To start discussing the possibility of updating them, the necessary conditions must be created. And for this, the United States and its allies should abandon the policy of “containment” of Russia and take concrete practical measures to de-escalate the military-political situation, including in line with para. 2 Article 4 of our draft treaty.
As regards the prevention of incidents on the high seas and in the airspace above it, we welcome the readiness of the United States for appropriate consultations. However, this work cannot replace the settlement of the key problems posed by Russia.
