NATO offers Russia another meeting. Moscow wants a different Europe.

The Russian delegation came to NATO headquarters with demands for a rewritten security order. NATO sent it home with an offer to keep talking about arms control.

The meeting in Brussels on 12 January brought Russia and the alliance’s 30 members together in the NATO–Russia Council for the first time since 2019. It produced neither a withdrawal of Russian forces gathered around Ukraine nor agreement on Moscow’s central demands.

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg chaired the talks. US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman represented Washington; Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko and Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin led the Russian side.

There was enough common ground to discuss further dialogue. There was not enough to fix a schedule for the next meetings that day.

“This was not an easy discussion,” Stoltenberg said afterwards.

The difficulty was not simply that negotiators disagreed over Ukraine’s possible accession to NATO. Russia wanted legally binding constraints on enlargement and on the military presence of existing allies in eastern Europe. NATO would discuss practical limits on military risks, but would not give Moscow authority over another country’s alliances.

With roughly 100,000 Russian troops reported near Ukraine’s borders, that disagreement is being conducted under the threat of force. Moscow denies planning an invasion. Western governments say the military concentration gives it the capacity to launch one.

By the end of January, written proposals had followed the meeting, while allies were reinforcing their own eastern deployments and increasing support to Kyiv. Diplomacy remained open. The forces making it urgent had not disappeared.

The date buried in Russia’s proposal

One of the most consequential references in Moscow’s draft agreement is 27 May 1997.

Russia’s proposals, published on 17 December, would restrict additional deployments by countries that belonged to NATO at that date on the territory of other European states. Another provision would exclude further NATO enlargement, including Ukraine.

The proposed date precedes the admission of most of the alliance’s present eastern members. Its effect would therefore extend well beyond a promise about a future Ukrainian application.

Poland and the Baltic states would remain formally inside NATO, but the ability of other allies to place forces on their territory would be constrained by an agreement with Russia. From their perspective, that would create a difference between holding a membership card and receiving the same practical protection as members farther west.

Moscow describes its demands as security guarantees. Eastern allies see an attempt to limit their security choices through a bargain they do not want.

That is why treating the dispute as a negotiation over how far NATO might expand misses part of its substance. The question also concerns how the alliance can defend the territory it already covers.

The two Russian draft texts—one directed at the United States, the other at NATO members—combine those political demands with proposals concerning missiles and military activity. They are not all of the same kind.

Restrictions on a particular weapon can, in principle, be reciprocal and verified. A rule barring a country from choosing an alliance distributes political authority. Accepting the first does not logically require accepting the second.

Russia’s decision to package them together increases the pressure on Western negotiators. If Moscow insists on the whole package, the available scope for agreement narrows sharply. If it is willing to separate issues, some practical talks could proceed despite the larger political disagreement.

Grushko’s public response left that question unresolved. He expressed interest in discussion of intermediate-range missiles, limits on exercises and the prevention of accidental encounters. He also challenged NATO’s account of the right to choose security arrangements, arguing that one country’s choices could not infringe another’s legitimate security interests.

The conflict is therefore partly over how to read principles both sides invoke. NATO emphasises sovereign choice. Russia emphasises the effects of that choice on its own security. The disputed step is Moscow’s claim that its objection should determine what neighbours are allowed to do.

A door can remain open without an accession date

Ukraine is not on the verge of joining NATO.

There is no invitation or agreed accession timetable emerging from the January talks. NATO’s longstanding political commitment to eventual membership does not mean all allies agree that the conditions for entry have been met.

But acknowledging that reality is different from signing a permanent prohibition at Russia’s request.

Stoltenberg said membership was for Ukraine and NATO members to decide. He also made a distinction that matters immediately to Kyiv: the alliance’s collective-defence guarantee applies to members. Ukraine receives political and practical support as a partner.

That leaves the country in a difficult position. Its right to seek membership is defended as a principle, while the guarantee associated with membership is not available to it now.

Moscow may see that gap as an opportunity to force the question. NATO governments see surrendering the principle under military pressure as an invitation to further demands.

The same issue reaches beyond Ukraine. In his New Year address, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö reaffirmed Finland’s freedom to consider military alignment and apply to NATO if it chose.

Finland has not announced an application. The statement defended an option, not a timetable.

For Helsinki, an agreement closing NATO’s door would affect a national choice even if Finland had no immediate intention of walking through it. That helps explain why a proposal advertised as preventing Ukrainian membership has attracted attention elsewhere in northern Europe.

It also illustrates the limits of a bilateral US–Russian solution. Washington cannot dispose of the choices of countries that are not parties to that conversation.

The European argument is strongest when it makes this point concrete. A small state’s security is not simply a line item within a larger neighbour’s preferred arrangement. Its government and public have their own interests, institutions and decisions.

The challenge is to defend that position while pursuing measures that could reduce the danger around Ukraine now. An open door policy does not by itself cause Russian units to leave their positions.

Three negotiating rooms in four days

The Brussels meeting sat between two other diplomatic encounters.

Sherman met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Geneva on 10 January for an extraordinary session of the US–Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue. The American delegation included officials from the State Department, Pentagon, Joint Staff and National Security Council.

On 13 January, the discussion moved to the OSCE in Vienna, where Ukraine and other European states could participate directly. Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau began his country’s chairmanship against an unusually tense security background.

The different rooms reflected different memberships and responsibilities. Washington and Moscow can negotiate bilateral strategic questions. NATO members must decide alliance policy. The OSCE includes countries whose security is at stake but which do not belong to NATO.

That arrangement makes coordination cumbersome. It also prevents one meeting from pretending to represent everyone.

For Kyiv, participation is a substantive issue. A negotiation about its borders, military relationships or political future cannot acquire Ukrainian consent through consultation with another capital.

For the EU, the meetings expose a related problem. The Union has economic instruments and a large stake in the outcome, but it is not itself a military alliance. Many of its members sit at NATO’s table; some do not.

EU foreign ministers addressed that point in conclusions approved on 24 January. They rejected spheres of influence, insisted that European security concerns the Union and its members, and reaffirmed support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Those conclusions supply a common political position. They do not remove all differences over weapons deliveries, energy exposure or the timing and composition of possible sanctions.

Maintaining agreement on those operational questions is essential if Western warnings are to carry weight. Russia does not have to obtain every concession it seeks to benefit from visible arguments over whether and how Europe would respond.

The diplomatic process therefore has two audiences. It tests Moscow’s willingness to negotiate and tests the allies’ ability to sustain a common position while the negotiations continue.

A meeting can be useful even when it produces no agreement, if it clarifies what the parties are offering and refusing. It becomes less useful if its mere continuation is mistaken for a reduction in the military threat.

The measures that could still be negotiated

NATO’s offer included greater transparency over military exercises, ways to prevent dangerous encounters, improved civilian and military communications, and discussion of reciprocal missile limits.

These are practical subjects with a history of negotiated arrangements behind them. They address the danger that a military movement will be misunderstood, that an incident will escalate or that one side will fear it has too little time to respond.

They also require detail. An undertaking to be more transparent has little value without agreement on what must be notified, when notification is required and how another party can check the information.

The Russian and Western accounts of past arms-control failures differ. That makes verification more important, not less. A new arrangement would have to remain useful even when political confidence is low.

The possible restoration of offices and communication channels is a smaller step with a direct purpose. Officials need reliable ways to contact one another when an aircraft, ship or exercise produces a dangerous situation.

Restoring those channels would not settle the dispute over Ukraine. It could reduce the chances that another incident creates a crisis on top of it.

On 26 January, NATO delivered written proposals to Russia alongside a separate American response. Stoltenberg identified relations between NATO and Russia, European security and risk reduction and arms control as areas for further work.

The written response moved the exchange beyond a general invitation to talk. It did not concede Russia’s demand to control enlargement, and it did not announce agreement.

There is a narrow but meaningful possibility here: the parties could disagree about the political order and still place limits on some of the military behaviour making that disagreement dangerous.

The obstacle is whether Moscow considers such measures worth pursuing without its larger demands being met. A negotiation cannot bridge that difference by changing the label on the same offer.

While diplomats talk, governments prepare

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace used a 17 January statement to Parliament to announce supplies of light anti-armour weapons to Ukraine, with a small number of British personnel providing initial training before returning home.

In the same statement, he invited Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to London. The two decisions were presented together: support Ukraine’s ability to defend itself while keeping a channel for discussion with Moscow.

That combination answers Grushko’s demand that NATO countries stop supplying weapons to Kyiv in order to reduce tensions. Britain’s argument is that an independent country is entitled to request defensive assistance.

The disagreement cannot be resolved simply by calling all military activity escalatory. An attacker and a potential defender do not have identical purposes for the same category of equipment. At the same time, governments supplying it must consider how their actions affect military calculations.

NATO’s 24 January account of allied preparations listed several distinct decisions. Denmark was sending a frigate to the Baltic and preparing four F-16s for Lithuania. Spain was contributing ships and considering aircraft for Bulgaria. France had expressed readiness to send troops to Romania under NATO command.

The Netherlands planned two F-35s for Bulgaria from April and placed other units on standby. These were a mixture of deployments, future plans and offers—not a single force already assembled in one location.

Their immediate object was the defence of NATO territory. They did not extend Article 5 to Ukraine.

That distinction is central to the allies’ attempt to deter further Russian action without announcing direct military intervention in a country outside the alliance. It also gives Moscow a warning that another attack on Ukraine could result in more allied forces in eastern Europe, the opposite of the outcome Russia is demanding.

None of this makes war inevitable. Nor does the absence of an invasion by the end of January prove that the danger was exaggerated.

The relevant evidence is what happens to the Russian deployment, whether the written proposals lead to substantive negotiation and whether the sides can agree on measures that reduce the risk of force being used.

Brussels has offered another meeting and subjects to discuss. Moscow must now decide whether those subjects are enough to negotiate over—or whether its demand for a different European order leaves no room for a smaller agreement.