NATO officials prepare responses to Russia over Ukraine

BRUSSELS — NATO foreign ministers met virtually Friday to prepare their responses to Russia’s ongoing military buildup near Ukraine amid general skepticism about Moscow’s willingness to de-escalate and negotiate in earnest.

After the meeting, NATO Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg warned that “the risk of conflict is real” involving a further Russian invasion of Ukraine. But he asserted that the 30-member alliance was united in its desire for peaceful diplomacy.

If diplomacy fails, he said, the alliance is prepared to continue supporting the integrity and independence of Ukraine both “politically and practically” while creating “significant consequences” that “carry a heavy price for Russia.”

And he insisted, as President Joe Biden has done, that the U.S. would not make any deals with Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, over the heads of Ukraine or its European allies.

The meeting was a chance to confirm allied agreement about how to respond to varying Russian actions and an opportunity for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to consult with allies and brief them about the U.S. position before U.s.-russia bilateral talks next week in Geneva.

Those talks, at the deputy foreign minister level, will occur Monday as NATO meets in Brussels with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba.

Then Wednesday, there is a meeting in Brussels of the longmoribund Nato-russia Council. And Thursday, in Vienna, there will be talks at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a group of 57 nations, including Ukraine and Russia. At the same time, NATO’S military chiefs will be meeting virtually “to discuss issues of strategic importance to the alliance.”

This flurry of talks is an effort to provide a diplomatic de-escalation of the Russian-created crisis in Ukraine, combined with efforts to coordinate serious sanctions against Russia if Putin decides on further military incursions into Ukraine and to examine the military consequences for NATO itself. For NATO, which does not apply economic sanctions, likely responses will be to beef up deterrence in allied countries bordering Russia and furthering support for Ukraine to defend itself — precisely the outcome Putin says he does not want.

NATO officials say many member states are not overly optimistic about a diplomatic de-escalation and believe that Russia may simply want to buy time and be able to say to its citizens that the West was unwilling to talk and thus find a pretext to walk away.