Kremlin Reveals Details Of Last Putin-Biden Phone Talks

Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden had a balanced and business-like phone call on Saturday, Kremlin Aide Yury Ushakov told reporters.

"We can state that the conversation was rather balanced and business-like," Ushakov said. According to the Kremlin aide, the conversation lasted slightly more than an hour and came as a follow-up to the Russian-US talks held on December 7, 2021 via a video link-up as well as the presidents’ phone call on December 30.

"It was then that the leaders of the two countries began discussing the most important topic for today, namely the issues of ensuring long-term, legally binding security guarantees for Russia," he recalled. "Joe Biden predictably mentioned potential severe anti-Russian sanctions in the context of the thorny situation around Ukraine, but the emphasis was not placed on that issue during a quite lengthy conversation with the Russian leader," Ushakov said.

According to Ushakov, Putin "laid out in detail Russia’s approaches and explained why it is now high time to address the issues on which Russia’s national security really depends."

Putin and Biden had spoken over the phone at the end of 2021. On December 7, they also held talks via videoconference. The first face-to-face meeting between Putin and Biden as heads of state took place in Geneva in June 2021.

The West and Kiev have recently been spreading allegations about Russia’s potential ‘invasion’ of Ukraine. Moscow castigated these claims. However, the Kremlin did not rule out the possibility of provocations aimed at justifying such allegations and warned that attempts to use military force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have serious consequences.

Simultaneously, talks on pan-European security are underway. In December 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a draft agreement on security guarantees between Russia and the United States, and a draft agreement on ensuring the security of Russia and NATO member states. On January 26, the US and NATO handed over their written responses to Moscow’s proposals. Putin said that in those responses Washington and Brussels disregarded Russia’s basic concerns. However, the Kremlin pointed out that there were some rational aspects in the Western proposals, but they were minor ones.

"The facts are that Americans are artificially whipping up hysteria around an alleged Russian plans for the invasion, even providing the dates of such an invasion, but simultaneously boosts Ukraine’s military muscle, earmarking huge financial resources to modernize the Ukrainian army and increasing the number of military instructors being deployed there," he said.

"Conditions are being created for the Ukrainian armed forces to take provocative actions amid allegations about an ‘invasion.’ This is how we view the situation," he pointed out.

"Attempts have been going on for months to raise tensions around the movement of our troops on our territory. The situation reached the point of absurdity in the past several days," he noted.

"He [Biden] said he is committed to the diplomatic path and in this regard he outlined a number of considerations that, in his view, take into account many of Russia’s concerns and initiatives, which were outlined and conveyed to the Americans and NATO," Ushakov said.

"I will note right away that the Russian president reacted in the spirit that the Russian side will of course analyze the considerations expressed by Biden and we will certainly take them into account. But unfortunately, and this was said, these considerations do not address the central, key elements of the Russian initiatives," the Kremlin aide said.

These concerns include issues of NATO’s non-expansion, non-deployment of strike forces on Ukrainian soil, return to NATO force posture back to 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.

"[On these issues] we have not received any substantive answer," Ushakov stressed. He noted that many of steps outlined by Biden in the phone call had been included in the responses to Russian proposals by Washington and NATO in January.