Russia’s best diplomat on Monday angrily rejected U.S. allegations that it was getting ready a pretext to invade Ukraine as Russian troops have remained concentrated near the border.
The White Space said Friday that U.S. intelligence officers had concluded that Russia had already deployed operatives to rebellion-managed japanese Ukraine to hold out acts of sabotage there and blame them on Ukraine in a “false-flag operation” to create a pretext for possible invasion.
talking to reporters on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pushed aside the U.S. claim as “overall disinformation.”
Reaction sought after this week
He reaffirmed that Russia expects a written reaction this week from the U.S. and its allies to Moscow’s request for binding promises that NATO is not going to embody Ukraine or every other ex-Soviet nations, or station its forces and weapons there.
Washington and its allies firmly rejected Moscow’s calls for during final week’s Russia-U.S. negotiations in Geneva and a comparable NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels, that have been held as an expected ONE HUNDRED,000 Russian troops with tanks and different heavy guns are massed close to Ukraine, in what the West fears might be a prelude to an invasion.
A delegation of U.S. senators is vacationing Ukraine to emphasise American toughen for the country.
“Our bipartisan congressional delegation sends a clear message to the worldwide community: the America stands in unwavering improve of our Ukrainian companions to defend their sovereignty and within the face of power Russian aggression,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, A Brand New Hampshire Democrat, said in an announcement.
Talking Monday on a visit to Kyiv, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that “any more escalation may carry a high value for the Russian regime — financial, political and strategic” and emphasised the will to continue negotiations.
“we’re prepared to have a serious discussion with Russia, as a result of diplomacy is the one way to defuse this highly dangerous state of affairs on the moment,” she said.
Baerbock stated Germany has offered to ship cybersecurity specialists to Ukraine to help check out last week’s cyberattacks, which Ukrainian authorities blamed on Russia. at the comparable time, she noted that Germany hasn’t changed its refusal to provide it with guns.
“We made transparent that we will be able to do everything to avoid escalating the quandary,” she said.
Ukrainian officers have warned that Russia may just release an attack from various instructions, together with from the territory of its ally Belarus.
Plans for army drills
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has increasingly depended on the Kremlin’s strengthen amid Western sanctions over a brutal crackdown on household protests, stated that Russia and Belarus will cling massive army drills subsequent month.
Lukashenko mentioned the manoeuvres will likely be carried out on Belarus’s western border and likewise in the country’s south the place it borders Ukraine.
Russia has denied having plans to attack its neighbour and in flip accused the Ukrainian leadership of hatching plans to make use of drive to reclaim keep watch over of rebellion-held territories. Ukrainian government have denied it.
Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 after the ouster of Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly leader, Viktor Yanukovych, and additionally threw its weight in the back of a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. greater than 14,000 folks were killed in just about eight years of fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces in the country’s business heartland, called Donbas.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow will take unspecified “military-technical measures” if the West stonewalls its demands.
It’s up to Russia to prevent warfare in Ukraine, NATO chief says
In an interview with CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that while there is an urgent want for diplomacy to resolve the obstacle in japanese Europe, it’s up to Russia, no longer Ukraine, to turn flexibility. 8:40
Deputy International Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation on the talks with the U.S. in Geneva, said closing week that he might “neither ensure nor exclude” the possibility of Russia sending army belongings to Cuba and Venezuela if the U.S. and its allies do not curtail their military activities on Russia’s doorstep.
U.S. nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan has brushed aside the comments as bluster.
Asked Monday approximately the possibility of Russian missile deployment to Cuba and Venezuela, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that “Russia is fascinated by easy methods to be certain its security in the context of the present scenario.”