negotiations are impossible. ”We will not compromise with the key principles on which European security is built, including the fact that all countries have the right to independently determine their future and foreign policy without outside interference,» Psaki explained. It’s as if European countries, especially Eastern European limitrophes, are implementing their policies without such interference from the United States. Assistant to the US President for National Security Sullivan said that the US is ready for dialogue with Russia: «We have had dialogue with Russia on European security in the last 20 years. We can make progress in some areas. And we’ll just have to disagree in other areas. This is the essence of the dialogue. Our strategy, in a fundamental sense, will be to closely coordinate (actions) with allies, ensure unity, and then be ready to sit down (at the negotiating table) with Russia and respond positively to the idea that we can discuss in the appropriate format.» NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that the alliance had also received Russia’s security proposals. He pointed out that the dialogue should take into account the concerns of NATO and the opinion of Ukraine. Russia should de-escalate tensions around Ukraine as a «necessary precondition” for the start of any negotiations, said NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană. A high-ranking representative of the Washington administration said at a special briefing on December 17: «As we said, we are ready to discuss them (Russian proposals), but there are some points in these documents that, as the Russian Federation knows, will be unacceptable. But there are other elements that we are ready to work with that deserve discussion.» «Unlike the Russian Federation, we do not see any advantages in conducting these negotiations publicly: neither those that we are conducting with our allies and partners, nor those that we will conduct with Russia. We believe that if there is a chance that diplomacy will work, then it should be done on a confidential basis,» the administration representative said. On December 18 Ryabkov separately explained: «We offer negotiations on a bilateral basis with the United States. If we involve other countries in them, we will simply drown it all in debates and verbiage.» At the same time, according to the deputy minister, before there has never been such a situation in relations with the United States as it is now. «I hope that the Americans do not underestimate how much everything has changed, and not for the better,» Ryabkov pointed out. «And so far, unfortunately, there are no signs that they are ready to abandon their own patterns.» Summarising the above, firstly, it is worth noting that Russia has restored its level of subjectivity in the international arena to the level that it is able to reconsider the issue of international security on its own terms. This has already been noted by experts. Secondly, Russia’s proposals, which the US State Department previously called unequivocally unacceptable, are still being taken up by the White House for consideration. Given that the Biden administration itself initiated the negotiation process with the Russian side in the context of shifting its interests to Asia in connection with the confrontation with China, we can only guess what proposals were made by the United States to Russia in order to exclude a confrontation on two fronts for the United States. And experts also wrote about this — back in November of this year. High-ranking American officials have been visiting Moscow frequently. The November visit of CIA Director William Burns was at that time already the fourth visit of a senior member of the White House administration since the Geneva meeting. It is not difficult to guess that the purpose of the CIA director’s personal visit was not at all to make