The heads of US and Russian diplomacy, Anthony Blinken and Sergei Lavrov, have met this Friday in Geneva with the aim of trying to smooth things over at a time when NATO fears that the Russian Federation will decide to invade Ukraine.
An extreme that the Russian Foreign Minister denied after the meeting: “Never before has Russia threatened Ukraine and representatives elected by its citizens“, he stated at a press conference. “I have not heard any argument today that supports the US position on what is happening on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Only concern, concern and concern, but our concern refers to real facts that nobody hides: the supply of weapons to Ukraine, the sending of hundreds of Western military instructors,” he said.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that it has planned this invasion, but the significant presence of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, with some 100,000 troops, and the new military maneuvers announced by Moscow for the coming weeks they have increased the nervousness of the United States and NATO.
“We will not allow the hysteria of the West, that they do not try to sabotage the Minsk agreements”, Lavrov has warned.
Lavrov has also said that Blinken has promised him that next week Moscow will receive the written answers it demands to its proposals related to the freezing NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. Russia hoped that the US would arrive at the Geneva meeting with these answers, which it considers to be formal guarantees. For the moment, the responses have been verbal, but the US delegation has tried to emphasize during the meeting “the problems on the border between Russia and Ukraine, trying to condition everything else on the need for the de-escalation call.”
From the American position, Blinken has affirmed that the talks with his Russian counterpart have been “frank and helpful” and that his department will share their concerns and ideas in more detail in a brief that they will submit next week. But he has warned that Russia still has the possibility of choosing the path of diplomacy, and that if you choose the conflict around Ukraine “There will be serious consequences and international condemnation.”
“The United States and Europe are ready to meet Russia on either of these two paths,” Blinken explained.
distant postures
Both leaders have met in Geneva in a meeting, lasting about two hours, from which they started with very distant positions. The US Secretary of State has acknowledged that he attended the meeting with the intention to explore the diplomatic route, although acknowledging that the situation and the relationship between the two powers is at a “critical moment”.
For his part, the Russian minister underlined, minutes before the official start of the meeting, that he did not expect “progress” from that meeting and asked “concrete answers” to his “extremely concrete proposals”.
As part of the dialogue and the diplomatic channel, Blinken landed last Wednesday in Ukraine for two meetings with the president of that country, Volodímir Zelenski, and with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba. He then went to Berlin, where he met on Thursday with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and the United Kingdom and from where He reiterated his commitment to dialogue with Russia in the face of the escalation of tension in Ukraine.
In this context, The United States government yesterday sanctioned four Ukrainians which he has accused of being linked to the activities “influenced by Russia to destabilize Ukraine” in the context of the growing tension around the situation of the border between the two countries.
The United States has specified that sanctions seek to “undermine and expose Russia’s ongoing destabilization effort in Ukraine” and has specified that they are not related to the measures that the North American country and its allies are preparing to inflict “severe costs” on Moscow in the face of a possible invasion of its neighboring country.
In fact, the president of the United States, Joe Biden warned this thursday that any kind of Russian incursion into Ukrainian territory will be considered “an invasion” and will have a “severe response”.
Speaking to the press from the White House, Biden assured that “if any Russian unit crosses the border with Ukraine, that is an invasion.” If that happens, he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that “will be met with a severe and coordinated economic response” from the United States, the European Union (EU) and NATO. “There is no doubt. Let there be no doubt, that if Putin makes this decision, Russia will pay a high price,” the president reiterated.
For its part, Moscow has reiterated that “NATO’s aggressive activity on the ‘eastern flank’, hostile actions against Russia, including unscheduled exercises, the proximity and dangerous maneuvers of warships and warplanes, the military development of the Ukrainian territory, are absolutely unacceptable“.
What’s more, the country has demanded security guarantees from the US and NATO to prevent the Atlantic Alliance from expanding further east and stationing offensive weapons near its borders, an issue that Russia unsuccessfully addressed last week in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna, and that Lavrov will raise again today with Blinken.
Spain will mobilize a frigate to the Black Sea and values sending fighters to Bulgaria
As the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, advanced this Wednesday, Spain will send the Blas de Lezo frigate to the Black Sea in “3 or 4” days. The minister recalled that Spain has spent years participating in all deployments organized by NATO, and in this specific case the departure of the ships has been advanced, within what has been agreed with the organization.
Robles has pointed out that he also the possibility of an air deployment in Bulgaria in which Spain participates is being assessed, which would be added to the one that is part of every year in Lithuania.
In any case, referring to the Ukraine crisis, he said that Spain’s position, like that of the Atlantic organization as a whole, is that to solve it there is a diplomatic response that favors de-escalation of tension in the area.
Precisely today, the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, assured that “Spain is not hiding” in the face of the crisis facing Russia and Ukraine, while insisting that there is still room for dialogue.
Spain “It is a country that is committed to dialogue and democracy”, he said, while acknowledging that in the face of the current crisis between Russia and Ukraine the international community is “holding its breath” but has insisted on continuing to bet on the path of dialogue to achieve de-escalation. “But dialogue is not negotiation,” he stressed.
Likewise, he has warned that it is “unacceptable” to try to “go back” to the time when “one country dictated to another what security scheme it could have, who could be members of a certain organization.” “This is not how peace and progress have been achieved in Europe.pa”, he underlined.
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
