Putin: Russia will keep pushing for answers on key security demands

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia would keep trying to obtain answers from the West to its main security demands even though he accused the United States and NATO of "bypassing" those demands in formal responses sent to Moscow last month. Putin told a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron that the U.S. and NATO replies had not addressed Moscow's three key demands, which he listed as: no more enlargement of NATO; no missile deployments near Russia's borders; and a scaling back of NATO's military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels.

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia would keep trying to obtain answers from the West to its main security demands even though he accused the United States and NATO of "bypassing" those demands in formal responses sent to Moscow last month.

Putin told a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron that the U.S. and NATO replies had not addressed Moscow's three key demands, which he listed as: no more enlargement of NATO; no missile deployments near Russia's borders; and a scaling back of NATO's military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels. "The impression is that we didn't even raise these questions, they simply bypassed them," he said, referring to responses sent by the United States and NATO on Jan. 26.

"We see political clichés there, and proposals on some secondary issues. I do not think that this is where our dialogue ends. Now we will formulate an answer, our vision, and send it to Washington and Brussels," he said. Putin was speaking in the early hours of Tuesday after nearly six hours of talks with Macron on the Ukraine crisis.

He said the U.S. and NATO ideas, while not addressing Russia's primary concerns, could still be discussed. Washington and NATO have said some of Russia's demands, including barring Ukraine from ever joining NATO, are "non-starters", but they are ready to talk to Moscow about arms control and confidence-building measures.

Putin said it was important to find a way out of the situation over Ukraine and that dialogue was not over.

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