Russia says US response to security demands needs to be ‘urgent’

Russia says that the U.S. response to the security demands it laid out last week need to be “urgent,” Reuters reported.

Russia on Friday released draft security agreements for the U.S. and NATO as concerns grow about Moscow’s massing of troops along its border with Ukraine.

Among the demands, Russia is demanding that the U.S. and NATO deny Ukraine membership into the alliance, and that NATO and Ukraine roll back military deployments.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters later Friday that the U.S. would respond sometime this week with a “more concrete proposal” after consulting with allies.

Speaking to Russian news agency RIA, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Washington has not yet responded to the demands, Reuters reported.

“I think they’ll try to turn this into a slow-moving process, but we need it to be urgent, because the situation is very difficult, it is acute, it tends to become more complicated,” Ryabkov said, according to Reuters.

The U.S. and allies have raised concerns that Moscow may be planning to invade Ukraine like when it annexed Kyiv’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday that U.S. intelligence assesses that Russian President Vladimir Putin still hasn’t come to a decision on whether to invade Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia says it is worried about Ukraine massing troops near its border, and most recently accused NATO of intending to deploy intermediate-range missiles.

Konstantin Gavrilov, who is leading Russia’s delegation in Vienna, said conversations with NATO need to be “serious,” Reuters reported.

“Everyone in NATO understands perfectly well despite their strength and power that concrete political action needs to be taken, otherwise the alternative is a military-technical and military response from Russia,” Gavrilov said.