What is NATO and what countries is it made of?

The two texts, called the “Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees” and the “Agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and Member States” of NATO, provide, among other things, for further prohibition of the expansion of the Alliance and the establishment of US military bases in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

It is not unusual for diplomats to present this type of working document publicly, discretion allows negotiators more freedom when working.

“It is necessary to write down Russian security guarantees, and to have them in law,” said Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, during the presentation of the texts to the press.

The documents consist of four pages, nine and eight articles, respectively.

For Ryabkov, they should work to restore Russian-Western cooperation in the “complete lack of mutual trust”, and through NATO’s “aggressive” policy on Russia’s borders.

It’s about “relaunching the relationship from a blank slate,” Ryabkov said.

President Vladimir Putin had already made these kinds of legal demands to his American counterpart, Joe Biden, during a video conference in early December.

The documents prohibit the United States from establishing military bases in all former Soviet republics that are not part of NATO, using infrastructure for “any military activity” and even “developing bilateral military cooperation” with those countries.

They also called on all NATO members to commit not to expand NATO and not to conduct any “military activity on the territory of Ukraine or in other countries in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia.”

With information from EFE and AFP