Russia threatens war unless US abandons eastern NATO allies
by Joel Gehrke, Foreign Affairs Reporter |
| December 17, 2021 04:51 PM
Russian President Vladimir Putin will bear the blame for Russian soldiers “coming home in body bags” if he orders a new invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden’s administration said in response to the Kremlin’s latest high-stakes maneuver.
“The Russian people don’t need a war with Ukraine,” a senior administration official told reporters Friday. “They don’t need their sons coming home in body bags. They don’t need another foreign adventure. ... So we hope that President Putin will take this opportunity for diplomacy and will also listen to the needs of his own people.”
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That stark warning followed the release of a “draft treaty” proposal from Moscow that Russian officials portray as a resolution to the standoff, which has intensified as Russian forces amass near Ukraine's borders. Yet the Russian document demands not only that NATO promise never to admit Ukraine to the alliance, but it also goes so far as to demand the removal of U.S. and Western European forces from Central and Eastern Europe — a rollback that would amount to a practical breakup of NATO.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/russia-threatens-war-unless-us-abandons-eastern-nato-allies
