The EU foreign chief has characterized Moscow’s push to renegotiate the security architecture of the continent as a “trap” designed to distract from the war in Ukraine. The warnings follow a series of rejections by European leaders who have dismissed the Kremlin’s effort to overhaul the post-Cold War security arrangements as a tactical diversion, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky questioned the nature of recent US-Russian discussions on the framework.
Unofficial Russian proposals detailed by BILD include demands for Finland to leave NATO and for the alliance to withdraw military bases from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Other terms involve the neutrality of Ukraine, the handover of the entire Donbas region to Russia, and the transformation of Moldova into a federation. In exchange, Russia has offered to pull its troops out of Transnistria and remove nuclear weapons from Belarus.