Before the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and American President Joe Biden, Moscow made it clear that Russia's concern with Ukraine is twofold.

On the one hand, Washington wants to put pressure on Kiev to work towards a Moscow-friendly implementation of the Minsk agreements on the Ukraine conflict.

The Ukrainian leadership should enter into direct dialogue with the leadership of the pro-Russian “People's Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk.

As has been the case for years, it is also about the status of the areas and about elections there.

Moscow rejects negotiations with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj.

Friedrich Schmidt

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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In addition, the anger over Berlin and Paris, which reject the Russian portrayal of the "inner-Ukrainian" conflict, has grown more and more. The "Normandy format" for the conflict, consisting of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France, is paralyzed. Recently there have been increasing concerns in Moscow that Kiev might try to take military action against the “People's Republics”. Before Tuesday's talks, Putin's spokesman emphasized that, in order to ease tension, it was necessary to ensure that Kiev gave up such “thoughts”.

Other Moscow representatives are circulating figures on a concentration of Ukrainian troops in the conflict area.

It is unclear to what extent this is a counter charge to the American and Ukrainian information on Russian troop concentrations in the border area with Ukraine and in the annexed Crimea.

In addition, Moscow is discussing the option of the “People's Republics”, whose residents have been naturalized in the hundreds of thousands, to seek (military) protection from Russia.

This is fueling speculation that Moscow is looking for an opportunity for open intervention.

Does Russia want to correct the turning point 30 years ago?

On the other hand, Putin is now calling for “long-term security guarantees” over and above the immediate Ukraine conflict. It is about an explicit, contractual exclusion of NATO membership of Ukraine, but also Georgia, and any future expansion of the alliance. In addition, according to the demand, the territory of the neighboring states should not pose any threat to Russia. Putin speaks of corresponding “red lines”.

Foreign policy expert Fyodor Lukyanov, who is close to the Kremlin, translates the demands as “Finlandization”: Russia's neighboring countries would remain formally sovereign, but would have to be geopolitically neutral. Lukyanov emphasizes that the "ambiguity" that has existed since the Bucharest NATO summit in April 2008 - Ukraine and Georgia are promised membership, but deferred for an indefinite period out of consideration for Russia - due to the loss of trust between the West and Russia make matters worse. Moscow assumes that NATO members are committed to the alliance, and that there is a “gray area” for non-members like Ukraine. Russia is "trying to correct the military-political results of the turning point 30 years ago," and Putin sees tensions as an opportunitythe Cold War taught him that.