According to a Russian propaganda site in Romania, the US and the Western states do not want to normalize their relations with Russia, although Moscow insists on it.
NEWS: "Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with VGTRK that the Russian side is ready to normalize relations with the United States, but not at the expense of its own interests. Where there is a will, there is a way. We have never lost this will, the Kremlin leader said in response to a related question.
If we see that the situation changes in such a way that there are opportunities and prospects to build relations with other countries, we are ready for it. The question is not about us, it’s about them. But it can’t be to the detriment of the interests of the Russian Federation, the Russian president stressed."
NARRATIVE: The US and the Western states refuse to negotiate peace with Russia
An unconditional acceptance of Moscow's demands is not negotiation
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: Contrary to the claims of the Russian diplomacy, the collective West has tried several times to negotiate with the Russian Federation, but has always been faced with Moscow's refusal to stop bombing and occupying Ukrainian territories.
In November 2022, according to US media, the Biden administration was encouraging Ukraine's leaders to show their willingness to negotiate with Moscow and to drop their refusal to engage in peace talks as long as Vladimir Putin was leading Russia. Asked about this, a spokesman for the US State Department replied that "if Russia is ready for negotiations, it should stop its bombs and missiles and withdraw its forces from Ukraine." The Kremlin has not done this, and there’ve been no negotiations.
Furthermore, in December 2022, Russia said that the West's refusal to recognize the "new territories" seized from Ukraine was hampering peace talks, after President Joe Biden had personally said he was ready to meet with Vladimir Putin . In the same month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, but to no avail, because „The European countries did not propose anything concrete” , according to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Similarly, French President Emmanuel Macron tried to initiate a dialogue with the Kremlin, but it did not happen, as Russia again refused to compromise.
In January 2024, Russia, through the voice of the same Sergei Lavrov, officially rejected the US proposal for negotiations on the control of nuclear weapons. On this occasion, the world learned that Moscow had announced, privately, its refusal to participate in the discussions on the new START treaty , which regulates the number of nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and Russia - the only one of its kind between the two states - as early as December 2023 Moreover, Russia has not offered any alternative proposal for resuming dialogue, claiming that the US foreign policy has no other purpose than "undermine Russia's security and interests." At the end of the same month, the Kremlin denied reports that Vladimir Putin had tried to talk with the US about ending the war in Ukraine. "It is false information, it is completely untrue," said the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov.
In February 2024, Russian officials stated that, in 2023, there would have been three informal talks between the US and Russia , in Turkey, through intermediaries, which did not yield any results. But Washington stated that it was not aware of such meetings, especially since Ukraine was missing from them, the only one that would have been able to negotiate a peace agreement.
In October 2024, Russia once again stated its refusla to negotiate with the US on nuclear stability, in the absence of preconditions, through the voice of the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov. "For Russia, strategic negotiations are inseparable from the current military and political situation," Ryabkov said. On October 24, during a speech held at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Vladimir Putin stated that Russia's relationship with the United States, after the American presidential elections, would depend on the attitude adopted by Washington, warning at the same time, however, that any peace agreement should recognize Moscow’s control over the Ukrainian territories already occupied by the Russian army. But just a few days after the election of Donald Trump, the Kremlin claimed, against the bakground of information that Putin had a talk with him, that the West was not ready for negotiations with Russia, because "it continues to try to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia", while Moscow "continues the special operation until all objectives are achieved."
Moscow has never been a victim of the West
CONTEXT: Since the outbreak of the war, The Kremlin has portrayed itself as a victim of NATO and the Western community, which is forced to fight a new „război war for the defense of the fatherland” . At regular intervals, Russian propaganda releases various false narratives into the public space, which feed the main theses accompanying its aggressive policy in Eastern Europe. Thus, Moscow positions itself as a provider of security and stability, accusing the USA, NATO and the European Union of refusing to accept the end of the conflict, without mentioning, however, that the cessation of hostilities, in the view of the Kremlin, implies the formalization of the annexation of Ukrainian territories, and preventing Kyiv from join the North Atlantic Alliance and the European community.
The În Prima Linie website is managed by Georgiana Arsene, a former journalist at the Kremlin's official propaganda publication, Sputnik, known over the years for promoting Russian narratives and interviews with the former Russian ambassador to Bucharest, Valeri Kuzmin. To make its support for Vladimir Putin as obvious as possible, the site uses as its motto a quote from the Russian president, and its Facebook page has an image of him as its cover photo.
A few months after the start of the war in Ukraine, Arsene got a scholarship to study the Russian language, granted by the State Linguistic University in Moscow. Upon returning to the country, the website became one of the main channels of Russian propaganda, being constantly taken over in its Facebook posts by the Moscow embassy.
PURPOSE: To promote an anti-Western and by extension anti-Ukrainian discourse, to amplify pro-Russian feelings, provoke and deepen social tensions.
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