Also the US may be quietly backing down on Ukraine.
Washington’s written response to Moscow’s security proposals was leaked and published by the Spanish newspaper El Pais. While the US isn’t willing to give a written guarantee that Ukraine won’t ever join NATO, the document contained serious offers from the US on the issue of arms control.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been concerned that US MK 41 missile launchers that are deployed in Romania can fit Tomahawk missiles that could potentially target Russia. In the written response, the US said that it was willing to discuss a “transparency mechanism to confirm the absence of Tomahawk cruise missiles” at US bases in Romania and Poland.
Russia is also seeking a mutual ban on the deployment of short and medium-range missiles in Europe that were previously prohibited under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019. The US said it’s prepared to start talks on “arms control for ground-based intermediate and shorter-range missiles and their launchers.”
Even with the NATO issue, the US has signaled it might be willing to give Moscow an informal guarantee that Ukraine won’t be joining the alliance anytime soon. Russia wants a guarantee in writing since the US broke a verbal promise it made at the end of the Cold War not to expand NATO eastward. But if there are real deals made concerning bans on missile and troop deployments to Ukraine, that could alleviate Moscow’s main worries of what a Ukrainian NATO membership could mean.