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What did Russia demand of NATO on 17 December 2021?
Summary
A look back at the day Moscow set out sweeping security demands while fighting continued in Donbas.
What did Russia want from NATO on 17 December 2021, and how did it sit alongside the war already under way in eastern Ukraine? The day brought both a diplomatic demand and a reminder of the front line.
Russia demanded that NATO end all military activity in Eastern Europe and never admit Ukraine as a member. It said it wanted a legally binding guarantee to end further eastward expansion of the alliance. Other demands included a Russian veto on Ukrainian membership, the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, and the withdrawal of multinational NATO battalions from Poland and the Baltics.
The demands were wide-ranging. They concerned not only Ukraine's own prospects but also the alliance's posture in other countries in the region, and they were framed as a binding guarantee rather than an informal assurance.
On the same day, the war in Donbas claimed another life. A Ukrainian soldier was killed and another injured after pro-Russian separatist forces targeted Ukrainian positions near Mariupol with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
Taken together, the two reports show a day on which Moscow pressed its case in security talks while shooting continued along the line of contact.
