Putin tells Biden that Russia requires legally binding security agreements

According to Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin aide, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his US colleague Joe Biden that Moscow needed legally enforceable security agreements. Putin even imparted the key concepts of the already provided security guarantees documents in a 50-minute telephonic chat. It’s worth noting that the phone chat between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump took place amid rising tensions in Europe between Russia and the West over Moscow’s border with Ukraine.

Ushakov also termed the Putin-Biden call as “substantive,” according to Sputnik. “Vladimir Putin outlined in detail the basic principles that were put in the documents we handed over,” the news agency reported on Thursday, “and stressed that negotiations on these three tracks [bilateral talks in Geneva, Russia-NATO council in Brussels, and OSCE summit in Vienna] are important for us.”

“But the most important thing is that we need a result, and we will get one in the shape of securing Russia’s guaranteed security,” Ushakov said, adding that “Biden has clearly stated that the US would not deploy offensive strike weaponry to Ukraine.”

If the United States applies sanctions, Putin tells Biden that relations would be severed.

While Ushakov emphasised that the Biden-Putin phone talk was substantive and particular, he also indicated that the Russian President warned Biden that if the West decided to impose sanctions on Moscow over the situation in Ukraine, the Russian President would break ties. Meanwhile, Biden cautioned Putin about further financial, military, and economic consequences if tensions near the Ukrainian border worsened. “Our president plainly responded that this would be a tremendous error that, of course, may result in the complete severance of relations,” Ushakov was cited as saying by Sputnik.

Putin even told Biden, according to the source, that any US penalties would be faced with harsh consequences, while expressing optimism that this would not happen. “In general, we are satisfied with the talks since they were candid, substantive, and specific,” Ushakov allegedly said of the high-stakes phone chat between two of the world’s greatest superpowers. I can also remark that the tone of these discussions was positive.”