The Ukrainian authorities played down this Friday the latest statements by the US president, Joe Biden, asking his fellow citizens to leave this country due to the risk of a Russian invasion.
“There is nothing new in this statement,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Days ago, the Ukrainian government already considered that Washington’s decision to evacuate its diplomatic personnel was exaggerated.
“We know the position of the United States, which has made these kinds of statements before,” Kuleba told reporters.
“They have already begun to evacuate part of their embassy staff and family members. This statement does not evidence any radical change of the situation”, he added.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden urged US citizens to “leave now” due to the alleged threat posed by Russian forces.
Meanwhile, this Friday Russia and Belarus also intensified their joint military exercises with tests to repel an air attack with live fire, while the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, warned of the risk of an imminent invasion of Moscow in Ukraine.
The maneuvers in Russia and Belarus also involve rehearsing how to annihilate sabotage groups, an exercise that, like using live fire, worries the West because of its proximity to Poland and Lithuania, but above all to Ukraine.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry indicated that this Friday’s Allied Determination-2022 maneuvers take place at five training camps in the country.
Moscow and Minsk have defended “the transparency” of the joint exercises, which would not exceed the limits contemplated by international agreements, while accusing NATO of more than doubling its exercises in the last year and expanding its military presence near the borders of both countries.
The White House denounced that Russia has already deployed 5,000 Russian soldiers on the border between Ukraine and Belarus, and that it plans to increase that number to 30,000 men, which raises fears of a Russian attack against Ukraine from the southern border of Belarus.
Blinken is on alert
That fear was expressed by Blinken, who went further and warned that Russia could invade Ukraine “at any time, even during the Olympic Games”, which are held until the next day 20 in Beijing.
The Secretary of State, who spoke these words in Australia after meeting with his counterparts from India, Japan and Australia, stressed that all US citizens who are on Ukrainian soil “should leave now”, given the risk of a war erupting. , a request that President Biden had already made hours before on television.
“There are signs of a Russian escalation. We are in a window in which the invasion can begin at any time,” said Blinken, insisting that Washington and allied countries are “strongly” committed to diplomacy and dialogue.
However, he warned that they are also working on deterrence and defense measures and that Moscow will face “massive consequences” if it decides to invade Ukraine, including economic sanctions, limitations on exports and an increase in the military capabilities of Ukraine and NATO.
Russia asks the West to stop sending weapons to Ukraine
The Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigú, on the same day asked the West to contribute to the de-escalation of tensions in Europe and for countries to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine.
“For our part, we would also like to propose to contribute to reducing this tension and stop loading Ukraine with weapons. They come from everywhere, it is being done publicly. It is being done demonstratively. It is not entirely clear why, ”said the Minister of Defense at the beginning of his meeting with his British counterpart, Ben Wallace.
Shoigu also asked the British defense minister to explain why the UK sent “its special forces to Ukraine and how long they will be there.”
The United Kingdom provides Ukraine with new weapons to increase its “defensive capacity”, as explained by London, and has also sent personnel to Ukraine for a short period of time to prepare the new weapons supplied and carry out training tasks.
Shoigú also expressed his wish that it be possible to discuss with Wallace “urgent issues on the reduction of these tensions”, as well as the Russian proposal addressed in December to NATO and the United States for there to be binding security guarantees that the Atlantic Alliance it will not expand further east and no offensive weapons will be emplaced near Russian borders.
The US and NATO have already responded last month to Russia to these proposals and rule out changing NATO’s open-door policy, but admit the possibility of resuming dialogue in the Russia-NATO Council and on arms control and military exercises.
Ukraine, in favor of negotiating on Donbas
Meanwhile, Ukraine was in favor of continuing negotiations after the meeting of advisers to the leaders of the Normandy Format (Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine) for the settlement of the conflict in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, held this Thursday in Berlin. and that ended without results.
“We are ready to negotiate for 24 (continuous) hours to obtain the desired result: the end of the war and the recovery of our territories,” said the head of the Ukrainian delegation, Andriy Yermak, who heads the Office of the President of Ukraine. .
The Russian representative in the negotiations, Dmitri Kozak, declared that the Berlin consultations ended without “palpable results”.
Kozak, deputy head of the Russian Presidential Administration, noted that Ukraine refuses to take into account the opinion of the representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics regarding the “future status” of those territories.
US Troops Arrive
A group of eight F-15 fighter-bombers, in addition to an unspecified number of US CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters and HH-60 Blackhawk ground-attack helicopters, arrived in Poland on Friday, where they will remain deployed until the end of February.
The main task of the F-15 will be to monitor the Polish and Baltic airspace, with special attention to the enclave of Kaliningrad.
The Polish Minister of Defense, Mariusz Blaszczak, stated on social networks that from that territory “Russian planes approach NATO airspace without communicating with air traffic control and without reporting their flight plan or with their transponders turned off to allow their location and identification.
In addition, the first military convoy with US soldiers arrived today from Germany to the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, on the Black Sea coast, to reinforce NATO’s military capabilities in Romania in the face of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Romanian Ministry of Defense confirmed the arrival of the convoy in the country, but did not specify at the moment the number of soldiers deployed.
According to the Romanian press, the convoy was made up of military buses and trailers carrying armored battle tanks and other military vehicles.
On the other hand, two US planes landed in Ukraine with a new shipment of weapons to strengthen the country’s defensive capacity in the face of possible Russian aggression, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov reported.
Anti-tank rockets, grenade launchers and ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine are among the material sent, a load of approximately 130 tons of war equipment. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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