Natylies’s Place: Understanding Russia
By Natylie Baldwin
January 12, 2021

Based on Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s remarks in a press conference on Wednesday that followed the nearly 4-hour meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (link to transcript below), while reiterating its position that it will not countenance limiting any future expansion of the alliance, NATO apparently stated a willingness to work with Russia on “reciprocal actions around risk reduction and transparency, improved communication, and arms control.” Of course, this is better than nothing and may keep the parties talking which could maybe lead ultimately to some meaningful agreement that would satisfy Russia’s security concerns. However, it should be kept in mind that First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov commented earlier in the week that Russia’s security concerns about NATO and Ukraine are a separate issue, with strategic stability matters of important but secondary concern at the moment.

Another proposal, according to NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg, was that NATO and Russia restore their respective delegations in Brussels and Moscow. Russia has, of this writing, acknowledged the proposal but not responded to it. It’s no surprise that Russia would not be impressed with this idea since it would merely take the two parties back to a status quo that Moscow made clear had not been working for a long time and that it consequently viewed as virtually useless.

Stoltenberg also suggested that Russia expressed a willingness to keep the dialogue going.

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Dear CCI Followers,

At last … 30 years plus, the truth comes out. There are numerous accounts by the top leaders of the Free World that they all agreed that the United States would never enlarge NATO to reassure Mikhail Gorbachev that the new Russia had no worry from NATO, definitely there would be no enlargement beyond the borders of the reunited Germany.

Below note how many of the VIP’s assured Gorbachev that he need have no fear … they were adamant that NATO would never move closer to the struggling-to-survive new Russia in the 1990s.

These facts below have been ignored, blurred and buried as Bill Clinton mercilessly began admitting one piece of the  former USSR into NATO. Today NATO surrounds Russia with the latest NATO missiles and troops aimed at Russia.

This is what Putin’s defiant resistance and threat to NATO in Ukraine is all about. He demands to have assurances that NATO will back off … or else. Russia is now strong enough militarily to make such demands. All of us could be caught in the crossfires if this situation isn’t resolved.

Read the article below to let it sink in how unfair, how two-faced our policies have been since Clinton began taking in former Soviet countries, several of which had fought with Hitler against the USSR in WWII. This is why today the world is facing nuclear annihilation unless Biden, et al, are ready to backtrack and be responsible and responsive toward Russia … as was intended in good faith in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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Dear CCI Followers,

Seldom, if ever, does an American Ambassador release an article to the public that deals as directly with the facts as the message below. This must speak for the deep concern felt today by Ambassador Matlock.

Read it carefully and send to as many friends and colleagues as possible. We America citizens must better understand the Ukraine issues and weigh in with President Biden, et al, or face the prospect of an all-out war which may go nuclear in minutes. There is no other issue as pressing as this one.

Ambassador Matlock is our quintessential living Ambassador, he knows from which he speaks. The bolding below comes from Matlock himself.

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CCI Friends,

I received an email from Vladimir Pozner in Moscow last evening saying the 4-month lockdown in Russia is not truthful! I sent an email to Chris Weafer (in Moscow also) who is watching COVID issues in Russia more closely than anyone I know. See it below.

Many thanks to Vladimir and Chris!

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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