UKRAINE: MISSILE DEFENSE COOPERATION AND CFE;

C O N F I D E N T I A L KYIV 001897 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT ALSO FOR EUR/RPM, EUR/PRA, AND EUR/UMB E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/02/2017 TAGS: PREL MARR NATO AJ CZ PL RS UP SUBJECT: UKRAINE: MISSILE DEFENSE COOPERATION AND CFE; DEBRIEF ON U.S.-RUSSIA EXPERTS' MEETING REF: STATE 107265 Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Michael Uyehara for reasons 1 .4 (b,d). ¶1. (C) Visiting EUR Deputy Assistant Secretary David Kramer briefed Foreign Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk August 2 on the results of the July 30 U.S.-Russia experts' meeting on missile defense cooperation as requested reftel, as well as on parallel Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) discussions. Yatsenyuk responded that he was concerned about Russian behavior over CFE, but that Ukraine and Russia have started their own experts' meetings on the topic. Informal consultations will take place at the deputy minister level in Moscow during the week of August 6. (Ambassador and poloff notetaker also attended the meeting.) ¶2. (C) Kramer also briefed acting Defense Minister Leonid Polyakov and Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Veselovsky during an August 1 dinner that Ambassador hosted in Kramer's honor. Polyakov and Veselovsky listened attentively to Kramer's account of the meetings and also of his meeting in Brussels with NATO allies earlier the same day. They expressed their appreciation for the briefing. Veselovsky inquired whether the U.S. or Russian side had proposed holding a missile defense and a CFE meeting on the same day and venue. He nodded when Kramer said the Russians had wanted the same experts to lead both discussions, noting that the Russians would argue that their concessions in one area would need to be matched by U.S. concession in the other. Kramer assured Veselovsky that the U.S. would not accept such a linkage and that indeed the Russians put all disagreements with the U.S. in the same basket. Polyakov observed that, whether or not the Russians believed their own arguments that new missile defense facilities were targeted against them, the Russian reaction arose from a visceral hostility to the possibility that the U.S. might place its missile defense facilities in former Warsaw Pact nations. ¶3. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website: www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev. Taylor