Putin to demand a Ukraine guarantee
MOSCOW — The Kremlin said Friday that President Vladimir Putin will seek binding guarantees precluding NATO’S expansion to Ukraine during a planned call with U.S. President Joe Biden, while the Ukrainian defense minister warned that Russia could invade his country next month.
With tensions between Russia and the West escalating, Biden said his administration was “putting together what I believe to be the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr. Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he may do.”
“But that’s in play right now,” he told reporters in Washington.
Ukraine, the U.S. and other Western allies are increasingly concerned that a Russian troop buildup near the Ukrainian border could signal Moscow’s intention to invade. The U.S. has threatened the Kremlin with the toughest sanctions yet if it launches an attack, while Russia has warned that any presence of NATO troops and weapons on Ukrainian soil would cross a “red line.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told lawmakers Friday that the number of Russian troops near Ukraine and in Russian-annexed Crimea is estimated at 94,300, warning that a “largescale escalation” is possible in January.
Amid the mounting tensions, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters Friday that arrangements have been made for a Putin-biden call in the coming days, adding that the date will be announced after Moscow and Washington finalize details.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said later that administration officials have “engaged in the possibility” of a Biden-putin call.
“It certainly would be an opportunity to discuss our serious concerns about the bellicose rhetoric, about the military buildup that we’re seeing on the border of Ukraine,” Psaki said.
Ushakov noted that during the call with Biden, Putin will raise his demand for a legally binding agreement that would “exclude any further NATO expansion eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that would threaten us on the territories of neighboring countries, including Ukraine.”
Russia long has pushed for such arrangements, Ushakov said. “It simply can’t continue like that,” he said.
Russia and Ukraine have remained locked in a tense tug-ofwar after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.
Konstantin Kosachev, a deputy speaker of the upper house of parliament, reaffirmed Moscow’s denial that it was pondering an attack.
“We don’t have any plans to attack Ukraine. We don’t have any heightened military activity near Ukraine’s borders. There is no preparation underway for an offensive,” Kosachev told state TV channel Russia-24.