Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had, "at the initiative of the American side", held a telephone conversation with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken on Tuesday where both sides discussed the possibilities for further work on security assurances.

 

"An exchange of views was continued on issues of providing legal guarantees for ensuring Russia's security in the context of the written reaction submitted by the US and NATO to the relevant draft international legal agreements submitted to them earlier," said the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement.

 

"The Minister emphasised the imperative nature of our demands to faithfully adhere to the obligation of all OSCE countries not to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of others, including the non-expansion of NATO and the non-deployment of strike weapons near Russian borders," it added.

 

Moscow said that during the consideration of the bilateral agenda, Lavrov pointed out the unacceptability of "Washington's destructive line of restricting the activities of Russian diplomatic missions in the United States" and intensify the search for ways to remove these "irritants".

 

Russia on Tuesday also released the text of Lavrov's message "on the subject of the indivisibility of security", sent on January 28 to his counterparts from the US, Canada and a number of European countries.

 

The Kremlin revealed that it remains "seriously concerned" about the growth of military-political tension in the immediate vicinity of its western borders and the responses of the US and NATO to its proposals received on January 26, 2022 testify to "significant differences in the understanding of the principle of equal and indivisible security" fundamental to the entire European security architecture.

 

"That's not how things will work. The meaning of the agreements on the indivisibility of security lies in the fact that security is either one for all, or there is none for anyone. And, as stipulated in the Istanbul Charter, every OSCE participating state has an equal right to security, not just NATO members, who interpret this right as referring exclusively to members of the North Atlantic 'exclusive' club," Lavrov's message said.

 

The matter also came up for discussion during the Lavrov-Blinken telephone conversation.

 

"Today, I reaffirmed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that we won't allow this issue to be dragged out. We will insist on honest conversations and explanations of why the West does not want to honour its commitments at all, or only selectively when it benefits them. Blinken agreed that this is a subject for another conversation. We will see how it goes," Lavrov told media in Moscow.

 

Russia on Thursday also slammed the overnight statement made by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on country's alleged use of "chemical weapons" and its "multiple invasions" of other states.

 

"The statement of the White House official representative is fundamentally false, aimed at demonising Russia in the eyes of the US public and the world community. The US has not backed up with any credible evidence its fantasies built on outright lies about the alleged use of chemical weapons by our country," said Anatoly Antonov, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, on Wednesday.

 

"Let me remind you that the United States remains the only country that has not yet fulfilled its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and has not eliminated national chemical weapons arsenals," added the Russian Ambassador.

 

Joining the large-scale retaliation from Moscow to Washington, the Russian embassy in London said that Great Britain is selling "decommissioned weapons" to Ukraine, "which can hardly ever be useful" to its armed forces.

 

According to the Russian news agency Tass, country's Ambassador to London Andrey Kelin said in an interview with the Solovyov Live YouTube channel that Ukraine is receiving military assistance, including weapons, from Western countries.

 

"Ukraine received two boats some time ago. There have been several flights from Britain to Ukraine with British-made Javelin analogs, a shorter modification with a shorter firing range... There will be little use for the Ukrainian armed forces from these supplies but they are basically meant to demonstrate London's 'solidarity' with

Kiev," the agency quoted Kelin as saying.