US says diplomacy still open to end Ukraine standoff with Russia

Service members participate in navy workout routines held by the armed forces of Russia and Belarus on the Gozhsky coaching floor within the Grodno area, Belarus, February 12, 2022. Leonid Scheglov/BelTA/Handout through REUTERS

HONOLULU/DONETSK, Ukraine  — The US mentioned diplomacy might nonetheless resolve a standoff with Moscow over Ukraine however added that the chance of a Russian invasion was excessive sufficient to warrant pulling U.S. embassy employees out of Kyiv.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was talking after talks on Saturday with Japanese and South Korean counterparts, following Washington’s warning that Russia’s navy, which has greater than 100,000 troops massed close to Ukraine, might invade at any second. Moscow denies having any such plans.

A flurry of conferences and cellphone calls in latest days between prime Western and Russian officers has produced no signal of a breakthrough to resolve in weeks of escalating tensions.

Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz is about to fulfill Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday however a German supply mentioned Berlin didn’t count on “concrete outcomes” from these talks.

Scholz would clarify the West was united and any aggression would immediate “painful, appreciable sanctions” on Russia, the supply mentioned.

“The diplomatic path stays open. The best way for Moscow to indicate that it needs to pursue that path is easy. It ought to de-escalate, fairly than escalate,” Blinken mentioned after his conferences within the U.S. Pacific archipelago of Hawaii.

In an hour-long name on Saturday, U.S. President Joe Biden informed Putin that the West would reply decisively to any invasion of Ukraine, including such a step would produce widespread struggling and isolate Moscow.

A senior Biden administration official mentioned the decision was substantive however that there was no basic change.

The Kremlin mentioned Putin informed Biden that Washington had did not take Russia’s principal issues under consideration and it had obtained no “substantial reply” on key components of its safety calls for.

Putin needs ensures from the US and NATO that embrace blocking Ukraine’s entry into NATO, refraining from missile deployments close to Russia’s borders and scaling again NATO’s navy infrastructure in Europe to 1997 ranges.

Washington regards most of the proposals as non-starters however has pushed the Kremlin to debate them collectively with Washington and its European allies.

‘HIGH ENOUGH’ RISK

Washington, together with its Western allies and plenty of different nations, ordered most of its embassy employees on Saturday to go away Ukraine instantly because of the menace of an invasion.

“We ordered the departure of a lot of the Individuals nonetheless on the U.S. embassy in Kyiv. The danger of Russian navy motion is excessive sufficient and the menace is imminent sufficient that that is the prudent factor to do,” Blinken mentioned in Honolulu.

Lots of Washington’s European allies and others have additionally been scaling again or evacuating employees from their Kyiv missions and have urged residents to go away or keep away from journey to Ukraine.

U.S. employees on the Organisation for Safety and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) started leaving https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-staff-osce-begins-pullout-donetsk-eastern-ukraine-2022-02-13 by automobile from the rebel-held metropolis of Donetsk in east Ukraine on Sunday, a Reuters witness mentioned.

The OSCE conducts operations in Ukraine together with a civilian monitoring mission in Russian-backed, self-proclaimed separatist republics within the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, the place a battle that erupted in 2014 has killed greater than 14,000 individuals.

Amid the strain, Dutch provider KLM mentioned it could cease flying to Ukraine and Germany’s Lufthansa mentioned it was contemplating suspending flights.

An adviser in Ukraine’s presidency, Mykhailo Podolyak, mentioned that no matter what airways selected to do Kyiv had no plans to shut its airspace as such a transfer would resemble “a form of partial blockade”.

After a name on Saturday between French President Emmanuel Macron and Putin, a French presidency official mentioned there have been no indications from what Putin informed Macron that Russia was making ready an offensive towards Ukraine. However the official mentioned Paris remained “extraordinarily vigilant”.

British protection secretary Ben Wallace cautioned towards placing an excessive amount of hope in talks, saying there was “a whiff of Munich within the air from some within the West”, referring to a 1938 pact that did not halt German expansionism below Adolf Hitler.

“The worrying factor is that, regardless of the large quantity of elevated diplomacy, that navy build-up has continued,” Wallace informed The Sunday Occasions of London.

/MUF

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