Kremlin: US Potential Willingness to Heed Russia's Concerns Could be Platform for Putin-Biden Talks

Responding to a question about what may constitute a basis for the negotiations, he said that it may be Washington's desire to return to the December-January status quo.

"The desire of the United States to return to the state of things in December-January and ask the question: what the Russians are offering may not suit us all, but maybe it’s worth it to sit down with them at the negotiation table? I mean the kind of draft documents that were transferred to both Brussels and Washington," the Kremlin spokesman explained, Sputnik reported.

At the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that the talks with Western countries are possible only if there are realistic proposals and mutual respect.

"We are always ready to listen to our Western partners if they make another request to arrange a conversation. I hope that in addition to preserving contacts through diplomatic services and through other channels what they say publicly in propaganda fervor, they will be able to offer us some serious approaches that will contribute to defusing tensions and fully take into account the interests of the Russian Federation and its security," the minister stressed.

The statement comes after earlier in October the Russian president himself noted there is no need for talks with Biden, since there is no platform to negotiate.

Last week, a group of 30 Democratic representatives issued an open letter urging president Biden to engage in direct talks with Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine. However, they later retracted their support for the motion, as the White House stressed that there would be "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine".

Back in December, Russia issued a draft version of security guarantees, calling on the US and NATO to hold talks to discuss them in order to deescalate tensions. The guarantees stipulated major restrictions on the deployment of troops, missiles, and military equipment, as well as a limit to NATO expansion, to keep Ukraine out of the bloc.

However, the alliance stressed it won't ditch its open-door policies, and Washington refused to hold talks over Russia's concerns, picking only those issues that interested the American side rather than all of Moscow's concerns.