Kremlin Denies It Asked NATO To Withdraw Troops From Eastern Flanks

The Kremlin has denied reports that Russian officials requested that the United States seek the withdrawal of NATO troops from countries near or bordering Russia.

"No, this is not true, this does not correspond to reality,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on February 21. “Our position is that the advancement of military infrastructure toward our borders is of concern to us. This position of ours is known to everyone; it is no secret to anyone.”

Those comments were in response to remarks by a top Romanian presidential adviser, who appeared to say that Russian officials had lodged the request during high-level talks in Riyadh between delegations from Moscow and Washington.

The Romanian official, Cristian Diaconescu, who spoke to a Romanian TV channel, later walked back his comments, clarifying that such a request had been made in the past -- in 2021, prior to the launch of the February 2022 all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has fumed for years, publicly and privately, about the presence of NATO troops in countries like the three Baltic states and Poland. It’s also complained loudly about NATO missile defense sites in Poland and Romania. And NATO’s expansion eastward -- first in 1997, and then in two rounds in the 2000s -- is seen by many Kremlin hawks as a fundamentally hostile act -- and a partial pretext for the Ukraine invasion.

With U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration signaling a radical new approach to European relations –- he has repeatedly complained that NATO members aren’t spending enough money on the alliance – there is rising alarm in Europe that the Trump White House could accede to Russian demands.

Earlier this month, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth roiled the 32-member alliance when he pointedly ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine and ruled out U.S. troops joining any potential peacekeeping effort in Ukraine. He also said NATO would not come to the rescue of any European nation if it were involved in that effort, and it were attacked by Russia.

Speaking in an interview with Antena 3 CNN on February 19, one day after U.S and Russian delegations met in Riyadh, Diaconescu appeared to suggest that Moscow had lodged a new request for NATO withdrawal.

"Their [Russian] expectations are that, at some point, the U.S. would cause the European partners within NATO to withdraw NATO's security guarantees on the 1997 alignment,” he said.

In subsequent comments to other Romanian TV channels, Diaconescu walked back that statement saying he was referring to previous requests. The Americans and the Europeans do not accept Russian requests, he said, "not then, not now."

Poland’s president, whose country has been the most vocal supporter of Ukraine and bolstered NATO troop deployment along NATO’s eastern flank, said on February 18 that he had received U.S. assurances that there will be no reduction in U.S. troops.

“There are no concerns that the U.S. would reduce the level of its presence in our country, that the U.S. would in any way withdraw from its responsibility or co-responsibility for the security of this part of Europe,” Andrzej Duda told reporters in Warsaw after a meeting with Trump’s special envoy, Keith Kellogg.

The Kremlin pushed similar demands about a NATO pullback in discussions with the United States in late 2021 before it launched its full-scale invasion.

Back then, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued demands in talks with the United States that called for a ban on Ukraine joining NATO and withdrawing deployments of NATO troops and weapons to where they were stationed in 1997 before the alliance’s eastward expansion.

Beyond taking on new members in Eastern Europe, NATO bolstered its eastern forces following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and in the wake of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to reassure members -- particularly those who fell under Soviet control during the Cold War.

In total, there are eight NATO battlegroups -- an “enhanced forward presence” -- deployed in eastern Europe and the three Baltic states, totaling nearly 30,000 troops, as of the most recent alliance data.

"Putin’s objectives remain the same: to subjugate Ukraine and also to divide Europe and also to divide Europe and the United States," Oana Lungescu, a former NATO spokeswoman, said in an interview with RFE/RL's Romanian Service. "So, precisely for that reason, there is less reason to speculate or to panic, but to look at what the interests of Europe are and, obviously, what the interests of Romania are."