Kremlin Spokesman Tells US Media Putin 'Willing to Negotiate' on Security Guarantees, Ukraine

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to hold talks on security guarantees and the situation around Ukraine.

"First of all, President Putin has always been demanding negotiations and diplomacy... And actually, he initiated the issue of guarantees of security for the Russian Federation. And Ukraine is just a part of the problem, it's a part of the bigger problem of security guarantees for Russia and of course President Putin is willing to negotiat", Peskov told CNN's Frederik Pleitgen late Monday.

President Putin earlier conceptually approved the Foreign Ministry's draft of Moscow's responses on security guarantee proposals, the Kremlin confirmed to Sputnik. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russia's president that Washington's response to key issues of Moscow’s proposals is negative.

On Monday, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan briefed US lawmakers about the Ukraine situation and Washington's offer to provide Kiev with $1 billion in sovereign loan guarantees to ease concerns of war in the country, according media reports. Meanwhile, the US State Department said Washington is "intensifying our efforts to deter Russia and to impose costs should Moscow decide to go ahead with military action".

According to Lavrov, NATO wants to determine the development of the situation on the European continent on its own, while the concept of indivisible security is different from what the West is trying to present.

"I sent a special message to all our Western colleagues, drawing their attention to the fact that the obligations on the indivisibility of security are much more complex than they try to imagine, justifying Ukraine's entry into NATO, however, assuring, in brackets, that this is not the case yet...but we all know how such assurances work", Lavrov said at a meeting with President Putin.

The situation around Ukraine has worsened in recent weeks, with NATO raising concerns over an alleged Russian military buildup near the Ukrainian border and urging allies to boost their military support for Kiev.

Russia has rejected allegations of possible "aggressive actions" on the Ukrainian border made by Western leaders, indicating that such claims are used as a pretext to deploy more NATO military equipment near the Russian border, as well as to cover Kiev's policy to sabotage the Minsk agreements on Donbass.