A perhaps not fateful but difficult phase will begin for NATO in the coming week.
Putin forced the alliance and its supremacy to discuss the division of Europe into spheres of interest, something the West has never been ready to do before.
In essence, he demands a new edition of Yalta a little further east;
In addition, he wants to decouple the United States and Europe from one another a little bit in terms of nuclear power.
Allianz has already rejected most of Putin's demands.
In fact, they are so exaggerated that many are right to wonder if he only proposed them to be rejected.
But the fact that he even managed to get talks on this scale going with minimal effort can only be explained by the fact that the West's fear of Russia is hardly less than that of Putin's fear of NATO.
Nevertheless, he has the weaker hand.
Putin is threatening to invade Ukraine, which could cost him a lot but would do little harm to the West.
It is therefore unnecessary for the western side to make unilateral concessions, especially not when it comes to questions of principle such as the freedom to choose an alliance.
New negotiations on arms control would make sense, especially after the end of the INF treaty.
The new Russian medium-range system threatens Europe, such weapons were banned here for good reason.