Yesterday NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke publicly and strongly against the Russian initiative for direct Russia-NATO dialogue. The main fears of this Brussels official are that these negotiations may not only be about guarantees of the alliance not to expand to the east, but also about the formulation on paper of mutual zones of influence or unconditional zones of strategic interests, where mutual penetration by force is inadmissible. By default, such a zone of Russia's strategic interests is the entire (!) Post-Soviet space, including the Baltic countries, which were hastily admitted to NATO in the wake of the first period of EU growth at the expense of Eastern Europe.

The Brussels bureaucrats are understandable.

The entities that they have bred for 30 years for the sake of inflating the state of this very European bureaucracy are turning into a chimera and disappear in the common sense of direct and honest negotiations.

However, such, in general, a politically insignificant figure like the NATO secretary general, cannot broadcast only his opinion.

Earlier, the same Stoltenberg at the NATO summit agreed that "Russia has no right to its zone of influence."

I would like to ask Comrade Stoltenberg: "Who are you to say something like that?"

Later, in an interview with one of the European tabloids, he was no longer so categorical, but continued to bend the same line.

Which suggests a coordinated tactic of behavior: the United States is bargaining, having received well-known draft proposals from the Russian Foreign Ministry, European bureaucrats are mumbling in public.

What is it all the same talking about, that so diligently disguise the smokescreen of meaningless media streams of Brussels officials?

As you know, a few days ago, Russian Foreign Ministry officials handed over two documents to their American colleagues, who had arrived in Moscow especially for this.

These are the draft agreements between Russia and the United States on security guarantees and a multilateral agreement on security measures for the Russian Federation and the member states of the North Atlantic Alliance.

The Kremlin, in fact, demands that the United States and its satellites in Europe legally formalize the refusal to expand NATO's infrastructure towards Russian borders, and curtail any military cooperation in the post-Soviet space.

The documents also suggest the disappearance of American nuclear weapons from the European continent and the return of NATO forces to the 1997 positions.

In this way, the status quo can be restored.

The documents have been published.

Now each of the billions of people in different countries, whose fate directly depends on the implementation of these agreements, can read in the primary source what Russia is actually offering the West.

Not so long ago, many European and overseas politicians could not have imagined such a categorical tone from Moscow.

On the other hand, the years of irresponsible Russophobic politics were not in vain for either them or us.

Attempts to isolate Russia, impose economic sanctions, and strangle it in monetary embrace have only resulted in the Russians mobilizing resources, almost abandoning the dollar as a reserve currency, shifting the steering wheel of external development to the East, and rallying society around national leader Vladimir Putin.

We have developed and delivered to the troops unique complexes such as hypersonic, laser and other systems that have no analogues in the world.

If Western politicians continued to sing the same unctuous songs here, in the 2000s, maybe little would have changed.

But politics, like history, does not accept subjunctive moods.

Today, the West, in principle, has two options for reacting to Russian initiatives. The first is to accept Russia's proposal and sit down at the negotiating table on creating new real mechanisms for mutual security guarantees in Europe. Otherwise, as Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko noted, Western countries will have to "deal with a military-technical alternative." This is the second scenario. Russia has already dashed lines to its American colleagues and their partners in Europe to create counter-threats in case of ignoring Russian initiatives.

In practice, this means for the collective West not only an expensive arms race, similar to the one that unfolded in the second half of the last century, where they are now in the role of catch-up, but also very sensitive for them changes in direct spheres of influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The military-technical alternative is always followed by the political alternative.

In return, Russia basically insists on only one thing: leave the post-Soviet space, which is, in fact, a thousand-year history, by blood, culture, economy and mentality, ours, Russian.

As for the statements of the Stoltenbergs, circulated in the Western media, then, as they say, "the dog barks - the caravan moves on."

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.