Putin: US, NATO have ignored Russia’s top security demands

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin says the U.S. and its allies have ignored Russia’s top security demands but Moscow is willing to talk more to ease tensions over Ukraine. In his first comments on the standoff with the West over Ukraine in more than a month, Putin said Tuesday that the Kremlin is still studying the U.S. and NATO’s response to the Russian security demands received last week. But he said it was clear that the West has ignored the Russian demands that NATO not expand to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations, refrain from deploying offensive weapons near Russia and roll back its deployments to Eastern Europe. Russia has amassed over 100,000 troops along the border of Ukraine.