Speaking in what appeared to be a carefully scripted televised meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said that he supported continuing negotiations with the West on the “security guarantees” Russia has been demanding of the United States and NATO.

“I believe that our possibilities are far from exhausted,” Mr. Lavrov said, referring to Russia’s negotiations with the West. “I would propose continuing and intensifying them.”

Mr. Putin responded simply: “Good.”

I don't put much stock in a scripted presentation for the cameras when Russian and Belarusian war planes are screaming overhead near Ukraine's border and Russian warships are sailing through the Bosporus to the Black Sea; when Putin has had 100,000 ground troops massed on the border for a month in the dead of winter; when he has his generals and admirals running around preparing for war assiduously. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in December that talks with the West would not be dragged out, that that was a Western game that they were not going to play again. Well, here we are in mid-February. If it is true, as Lavrov says, that diplomatic possibilities still "are far from exhausted," the Russian military is, and it would not be American disinformation that the generals are bitching about Putin.

And I know this: the West has to give Russia something for, in none other than Fiona Hill's words, "Russia's legitimate security concerns"--and it should:

The televised meeting was a signal that Russia might continue using the threat of an invasion of Ukraine to try to squeeze diplomatic concessions from the West, rather than resorting to immediate military action.

1)Moscow has demanded that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO and has also called for 2) a rollback of NATO forces from across Eastern Europe.

I have less tolerance for bullshit meetings than anyone I know. Meetings would be short were I a diplomat which manifestly I am not. Russian demand one would be granted by me.  Russian demand two would be granted in principle: define "rollback."

The West's response:

The U.S. and NATO formally rejected those demands, but they proposed several areas — including nuclear arms control and limits on military exercises — where they were willing to negotiate.

I have no idea if the West's proposal on Russian demand two meets specs, I could see how it might, but with formal rejection of Russian demand one that would be the end of the meeting with me.