Vladimir Putin quickly described his conversation with American President Joe Biden on Tuesday evening as "constructive".

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Russian President has good reason for this.

Soon after the talks, Moscow announced dialogues, on the one hand with NATO and on the other hand bilaterally with the United States, which had been agreed in talks.

Moscow has specified a discussion of the "red lines" called by Putin as goals for this: they want to prevent any future expansion of the alliance to the east and any "threatening" stationing of weapon systems in neighboring Russian countries.

Friedrich Schmidt

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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With a view to the multilateral dialogue, the American president then held out the prospect of a meeting with Russia in which “at least four of our NATO allies” should take part.

It should be about Putin's concerns and about "whether we can work out any arrangement to lower the temperature on the eastern front".

This announcement immediately caused unrest there.

The four allies Biden alluded to and briefed immediately after the phone call with Putin are all Western Europeans: Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.

“NATO-Quint” is the name of this format, which is also common at ministerial meetings.

Poland and the Balts are not one of them.

"Holy Obligation to Help"

"Under no circumstances should Russia have a say in who will or will not become a member of NATO," warned Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.

The Kremlin is trying to divide Europe into spheres of influence.

“We know that from our own history, and we are by no means naive,” says Kallas.

The White House tried to dispel the impression that negotiations with Moscow were being negotiated over the heads of the eastern states.

Therefore, on Thursday, Biden first called the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj, then the “Bucharest Nine”, that is all NATO partners in the east, from Estonia in the north to Bulgaria in the south.

Biden had assured Selenskyj that “Ukraine will be at the table when it is on the agenda”.

Of course, he did not give his eastern allies such a promise.

America knows, however, that not only Ukraine is threatened, said a senior official afterwards.

Biden once again underlined the "sacred obligation" to provide assistance.

NATO will continue to talk about how the troop line-up can be "refined" there.

Foreign Minister Antony Blinken had already aroused expectations in Riga last week that America would increase its presence there.

Biden said Wednesday there will "likely be more troops".

It seems that Washington remains vague enough to allow room for maneuver in talks with Moscow.

The NATO-Russia Council would actually be the format for the security exchange with Russia - the body was created for this purpose in 2002.

However, the last meeting was a long time ago, it took place in the summer of 2019.

Since then, Moscow has turned down every offer of talks by the alliance and recently even closed its official representation to NATO.

Its general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, emphasized at every opportunity that the door for talks in this context would remain open, but the format is no longer of interest to the Kremlin: he always encountered a united front of allies there.