NATO members will meet with Russian officials in Brussels on Wednesday, and more talks will take place on Thursday at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, TRTWORLD reported.
Moscow and Washington have adopted firm positions ahead of new negotiations over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine, with the US rejecting a demand that NATO expansion be halted and the Kremlin saying it will immediately assess whether it is even worth continuing to negotiate.
At Monday's Geneva talks, Russia wanted guarantees against NATO's expansion into Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, as well as a rollback of the military alliance's deployments in Eastern Europe. The demands were categorically rejected by the US as non-starters.
The US envoy to NATO set a harsh tone for the upcoming discussions with Moscow, saying that any concessions on NATO's eastward expansion are off the table.
"No one will be able to close NATO's open-door policy," US Ambassador Julianne Smith stated on Tuesday.
The Geneva negotiations, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, are "open, detailed, and direct," but Moscow wants speedy results. He told reporters, "We see no real grounds for hope."
According to Peskov, talks between Russia and NATO will take place in Brussels on Wednesday, followed by a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna on Thursday.
Moscow says it has no plans to attack and rejects Washington's demand that it draw its forces back from Ukraine's border, claiming the right to deploy them wherever it is needed.
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