As Russia and the United States move towards negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Russia is also trying to get other things it wants on the table. The Kremlin has called for a "broader discussion" on European security to resolve the war in Ukraine. But what is Russia really talking about when it talks about European security?

Axar.az reports that according to Jussi Lassila, a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of Foreign Policy, it is about the presence of the United States and NATO in Europe.

"Russia's ultimate goal is to get the United States out of Europe and thereby leave Europe, in terms of security policy, at Russia's mercy," he noted.

Russia demanded, among other things, that NATO should not be allowed to accept new members. Russia would also have liked NATO to withdraw its troops and weapons from those countries that joined the military alliance after 1997. For example, from the Baltic countries and Poland. Russia also demanded that NATO should not be allowed to establish new military bases in the territory of the former Soviet republics.

He estimates that in this situation, even tougher demands may be heard from Russia than before. Furthermore, if Russia were to demand a return to NATO's 1997 borders, it would in practice mean a demand to cancel Finland's and Sweden's NATO membership.