Tensions grow over Ukraine with the trading of threats
WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met face-to-face with his Russian counterpart on Thursday to demand Russia pull back troops from the border with Ukraine, as tensions and suspicions grow in a confrontation over Ukraine’s increasingly close ties with NATO and the West.
Russia on one side and Ukraine, the U.S. and its NATO allies on the other traded fresh accusations and threats. The West, fearing that Moscow could invade Ukraine, threatened the Kremlin with the toughest sanctions yet if it launches an attack. Russia, seeing new U.S. and European support for Ukraine’s military, sternly warned that any presence of NATO troops and weapons on Ukrainian soil represents a “red line.”
Fears that Russia would invade its neighbor or seek to undermine the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have dominated Blinken’s travels this week to meet with European allies.
Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Thursday on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Stockholm, Sweden.
“The United States and our allies and partners are deeply concerned by evidence that Russia has made plans for significant aggressive moves against Ukraine, including efforts to destabilize Ukraine from within and large-scale military operations,” Blinken told reporters.
During his meeting with Blinken, Lavrov charged the West was “playing with fire” by denying Russia a say in any further NATO expansion into countries of the former Soviet Union. Zelenskyy has pushed for Ukraine to join the alliance, which holds out the promise of membership but hasn’t set a timeline.
“I want to make it crystal clear: Turning our neighbors into a bridgehead for confrontation with Russia, the deployment of NATO forces in the regions strategically important for our security, is categorically unacceptable,” Lavrov said he told the OSCE meeting.
The United States and its European allies have struggled to warn Russia off any military action and reaffirm support for Ukraine without moving so forcefully as to give Russian President Vladimir Putin a pretext to invade.
American officials and their allies acknowledge the uncertainties, including whether Putin is prepared to invade Ukraine or is maneuvering to bring President Joe Biden into one-on-one talks on security concessions.
Putin said Wednesday that Moscow would seek Western guarantees precluding any further NATO expansion and deployment of its weapons near Russia’s borders. Lavrov followed up on Putin’s call for a new security arrangement, stating that reaching an agreement on a set of “long-term and legally binding security guarantees is imperative to prevent sliding into a confrontational scenario.”