KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — With critical talks approaching, the United States and Russia on Wednesday showed no sign either will relent from entrenched positions on Ukraine that have raised fears of a Russian invasion and a new war in Europe.
Speaking in Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of planning to reinforce the more than 100,000 troops it has deployed along the Ukrainian border and suggested that number could double “on relatively short order.” Blinken did not elaborate, but Russia has sent an unspecified number of troops from the country’s far east to its ally Belarus, which also shares a border with Ukraine, for major war games next month.
Ukraine, meanwhile, said it was prepared for the worst and would survive whatever difficulties come its way. The president urged the country not to panic.
Blinken’s visit to the Ukrainian capital came two days before he is to meet in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. That follows a series of inconclusive talks last week that failed to ease rising tensions.
Russian military activity has been increasing in recent weeks, but the U.S. has not concluded whether President Vladimir Putin plans to invade or whether the show of force is intended to squeeze the security concessions without an actual conflict.
In Kyiv, Blinken reiterated Washington’s demands for Russia to de-escalate the situation by removing its forces from the border area, something that Moscow has flatly refused to do. And, Blinken said he wouldn’t give Russia the written response it expects to its demands when he and Lavrov meet in Geneva.
Meanwhile, a top Russian diplomat said Moscow would not back down from its insistence that the U.S. formally ban Ukraine from ever joining NATO and reduce its and the alliance’s military presence in Eastern Europe. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow had no intention of invading Ukraine but that its demands for security guarantees were non-negotiable.
The U.S. and its allies have said the Russian demands are non-starters, that Russia knows they are and that Putin is using them in part to create a pretext for invading Ukraine, which has strong ethnic and historical ties to Russia. The former Soviet republic aspires to join the alliance, though has little hope of doing so in the foreseeable future.
Blinken urged Western nations to remain united in the face of Russian aggression. He also reassured Ukraine’s leader of NATO support while calling for Ukrainians to stand strong.
Blinken told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the U.S. and its allies were steadfast in backing his country and its democratic aspirations against Russian attempts to incite division and discord through “relentless aggression.”
“Our strength depends on preserving our unity and that includes unity within Ukraine,” he told Zelenskyy. “I think one of Moscow’s long-standing goals has been to try to sow divisions between and within our countries, and quite simply we cannot and will not let them do that.”
The Biden administration had said earlier it was providing an additional $200 million in defensive military aid to Ukraine. Blinken said more assistance is coming and that it would only increase should Russia invade.
Zelenskyy thanked Blinken for the aid, which was approved in late December but not confirmed until Wednesday.
“This (military) support not only speaks to our strategic plans of Ukraine joining the alliance, but more importantly to the level of our military, our military supplies,” he said, referring to Kyiv’s desire to join NATO.
“Your visit is very important,” Zelenskyy said. “It underlines once again your powerful support of our independence and sovereignty.”
Zelenskyy released a video address to the nation on Wednesday evening, urging Ukrainians not to panic over fears of a possible invasion. But he said the country has been living with the Russian threat for many years and should always be prepared for war. He called on all Ukrainians, especially the elderly, to “breathe” and “calm down.”
Ukraine’s president also gave assurances that the country was strengthening its defense capabilities and doing everything possible to resolve the crisis through diplomacy.
“Ukraine doesn’t want a war, but must always be prepared for it,” Zelenskyy said.
From Kyiv, Blinken plans a short trip to Berlin for talks with German and other European allies on Thursday before meeting with Lavrov.
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron called on the European Union to draw up a plan to ease tensions with Russia, “We should build it among Europeans, then share it with our allies in the framework of NATO, and then propose it for negotiation to Russia,” he said.
Washington and its allies have kept the door open to possible further talks on arms control and confidence-building measures to reduce the potential for hostilities.
Ryabkov insisted, however, that there can’t be any meaningful talks on those issues if the West doesn’t heed the main Russian requests for the non-expansion of NATO with a formal response. He said the Russian demands are “a package, and we’re not prepared to divide it into different parts, to start processing some of those at the expense of standing idle on others.”
Blinken, though, said no such formal response was coming. “I won’t be presenting a paper at that time to Foreign Minister Lavrov,” he said. “We need to see where we are and see if there remain opportunities to pursue the diplomacy and pursue the dialogue.”
The Biden administration and its allies have accused Putin of creating the crisis and say it is up to him and the Russians to decide whether to invade and suffer severe economic consequences.
Russia has brushed off calls to withdraw its troops by saying it has a right to deploy its forces wherever it likes on its own territory. It also has rejected U.S. allegations that it’s preparing a “false flag operation” to use as a pretext for intervention. Russia has angrily denied the charge.
Before Blinken’s visit to Kyiv, a delegation of U.S. senators traveled to Ukraine to emphasize congressional support for the country.
Russia in 2014 seized the Crimean Peninsula after the ouster of Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly leader and also threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces in the country’s industrial heartland, called Donbas.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia maintained a tough posture Wednesday amid the tensions over its troop buildup near Ukraine, with a top diplomat warning that Moscow will accept nothing less but “watertight” U.S. guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation at the security talks with the U.S. in Geneva last week, reaffirmed that Moscow has no intentions of invading Ukraine as the West fears, but said that receiving Western security guarantees is an imperative for Moscow.
The talks in Geneva and a related NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels last week were held as Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine in what the West fears might herald an invasion.
Amid the soaring tensions, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Ukraine on Wednesday to reassure it of Western support in the face of what he called “relentless” Russian aggression. In Strasbourg, French President Emmanuel Macron urged the European Union to quickly draw up a new security plan containing proposals to help ease tensions with Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that talks between Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov set for Friday in Geneva are “extremely important.”
In a move that further beefs up forces near Ukraine, Russia has sent an unspecified number of troops from the country’s far east to its ally Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine, for major war games next month. Ukrainian officials have said that Moscow could use Belarusian territory to launch a potential multi-pronged invasion.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that some troops already have arrived in Belarus for the Allied Resolve 2022 drills that will run through Feb. 20. It said the exercise will be held at five firing ranges and other areas in Belarus and involve four Belarusian air bases.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday it’s too early to tell whether talks could defuse the crisis, adding that “after years of rising tensions, staying silent is not a sensible option.”
“The Russian side is aware of our determination,” Scholz told the World Economic Forum. “I hope they also realize that the gains of cooperation outweigh the price of further confrontation.”
Russia has denied that it intends to attack its neighbor but demanded guarantees from the West that NATO will not expand to Ukraine or other former Soviet nations or place its troops and weapons there. It also has urged NATO to roll back the deployments of its troops and weapons to Central and Eastern European nations that have joined the alliance after the end of the Cold War.
Washington and its allies firmly rejected Moscow’s demands but kept the door open to possible further talks on arms control and confidence-building measures to reduce the potential for hostilities.
Ryabkov insisted, however, that there can’t be any meaningful talks on those issues if the West doesn’t heed the main Russian requests for the non-expansion of NATO. He warned that the Russian demands “constitute a package, and we’re not prepared to divide it into different parts, to start processing some of those at expense of standing idle on others.”
The Russian diplomat said Ukraine’s increasingly close ties with NATO allies pose a major security challenge to Russia.
“We see the threat of Ukraine becoming ever more integrated in NATO without even acquiring a formal status of a NATO member state,” Ryabkov said, pointing at Western powers supplying Ukraine with weapons, training its troops and conducting joint drills. “This is something that goes right to the center of Russia’s national security interests, and we will do our utmost to reverse this situation.”
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 after mass protests prompted Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly leader to flee to Russia. At the same time, Russia also cast its support behind a separatist insurgency that swept over large areas in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting there.
Asked if Russia could accept a moratorium on NATO’s expansion eastward, an idea circulated by some political experts, Ryabkov answered with a firm no, saying that Moscow has seen the West backtrack on previous promises.
He emphasized that “for us, the matter of priority is achievement of watertight, bulletproof, legally binding guarantees” that Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations will not join the alliance.
Ryabkov suggested that the U.S. could also take a unilateral obligation to never vote for NATO membership for Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations.
Russia has urged the U.S. and NATO to provide a quick written response. Peskov told reporters Russia expects to receive it “within days.”
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