NATO to rebuff Russian bid for separate treaty

NATO is likely to rebuff a Russian proposal for a bilateral security treaty, seeing it as a ploy to regain lost influence over eastern Europe, four allied officials said. Russia's proposed treaty, limited to the trans-Atlantic alliance's 28 members, would require them to "perform defense planning in a way that it does not threaten the security of other parties," according to a three-page draft obtained by Bloomberg News. The initiative marks a Russian bid to assert its primacy over countries that were once part of the Soviet Union and to halt the Brussels-based North Atlantic Treaty Organization's expansion. The proposal, made last month, would have effectively given Russia a veto over allied military planning, especially in eastern Europe, said the officials, who declined to be named because the alliance hasn't issued a formal response.