US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on the first leg of the diplomacy tour he started to prevent a war between Russia and Ukraine, said that Russia could launch a new attack on Ukraine “in a very short time”.
Pointing out that the tension regarding Ukraine has escalated, Russia is still seeking a written response from the USA to the security guarantees it demands from the West.
While mutually pessimistic statements reveal the gap between Moscow and Washington, Blinken is preparing to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday. A Russian foreign policy expert described the Blinken-Lavrov meeting as “possible last stop before the train crash.”
Blinken told diplomats at the US Embassy in Kiev that Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border with “no provocation, no justification”.
“We know that there are plans to further increase the number of this force in a very short time. This will give President Vladimir Putin the capacity to take a more aggressive stance against Ukraine in a very short time,” said the US Secretary of State.
Russia also sent troops to Belarus for joint military exercises. This gives Russia the option to attack Ukraine from the north, east and south.
However, Russia denies that it intends to attack Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the reason for the escalation of tensions in Ukraine is the Western countries’ sending weapons to Ukraine, their military maneuvers and the presence of NATO warplanes.
The United States says it is preparing to reoccupy Ukraine eight years after Russia annexed Crimea and backed separatists who took control of large lands in eastern Ukraine.
Russia, expressing its discomfort with Kiev’s growing ties with the West, wants to impose some “red lines” to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, and wants NATO to withdraw its soldiers and weapons from Eastern Europe. Washington says these demands are “desperate attempts”.
Former Russian diplomat and foreign policy expert Vladimir Frolov said that the US and NATO’s proposal to hold arms control talks would not satisfy Moscow, and that Russia is after a much more fundamental reorganization of security in Europe.
“The Lavrov-Blinken meeting will most likely be the last stop before the train crash. The light of hope is fading, the positions taken are not compatible with each other,” Frolov said.
Defining Russia’s military deployment in Belarus as a “big rise in tension”, Frolov said, “I think some sort of military option is inevitable, other than the US stepping back and offering Ukraine to Russia.”
Geopolitical tension was also felt in Moscow. Russian Ruble, which fell to its lowest level in the last two weeks against the US Dollar, started to appreciate again, while Russian stocks started to recover after sudden depreciation.
On the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said to US Secretary of State Blinken in Kiev, “I thank you, President Joe Biden and the US administration for the military support you have given to Ukraine and your increasing assistance.”
The Biden administration approved an additional $200 million in defense and security assistance to Ukraine last month. The amount of aid provided by the Biden administration to Ukraine last year was the largest since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
In other news, Britain announced on Monday that it has started supplying anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryanbov called on Western countries on Wednesday to stop supplying arms to Ukraine. According to the Interfax news agency, Ryabkov said the security situation in Europe was “critical”.
Last week, Russia held three rounds of talks with the USA, NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which 57 countries are members, but these talks did not yield any concrete results.
The Lithuanian Minister of Defense noted that the deployment of Russian troops in Belarus is a direct threat to Lithuania.
“Currently, we consider the entry of Russian military forces into Belarus not only as a factor that will destabilize the security situation, but also as a greater direct threat to Lithuania,” Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said on Facebook.