The US Presidency stated that Biden will address, in his expected speech at 4 o’clock Washington DC time (9 GMT), diplomatic efforts and Russia’s deployment of military forces on the border with Ukraine.
Biden is again heading to talk about the developments of the crisis, while Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Friday, reiterated his country’s demands from the West, describing those demands as “legitimacy”, stressing that the war games with Belarus are “purely defensive.”
vow of escalation
Meanwhile, the Russian “Novosti” agency reported that a violent explosion resounded in the center of Donetsk city, the capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic in southeastern Ukraine.
According to the agency, the explosion sounded dozens of meters from the seat of the government of the Donetsk People’s Republic, which is loyal to Russia, and is not recognized internationally.
Russian media said that the explosion was caused by a car bomb near the government building of the Donetsk People’s Republic in the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
The explosion came hours after sirens sounded in the city center of Donetsk, after a Moscow-backed separatist leader in the breakaway region announced the evacuation of residents in anticipation of Ukrainian bombing.
disaster warning
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday of “catastrophic” repercussions in the event of the outbreak of the “Russian-Ukrainian” crisis and the outbreak of war.
Guterres’ warnings came during the opening of the annual Munich Security Conference, which Moscow is not attending this year.
“With the heavy deployment of Russian soldiers around Ukraine, I am deeply concerned about the escalation of tensions and the rising speculation of a military conflict in Europe,” the UN official said, adding that if this happened, “it would be disastrous.”
Western countries fear that Russia will deploy about 150,000 of its forces, including about 60 percent of Russia’s total ground forces, near the Ukrainian border, while the Kremlin insists there are no plans to invade Ukraine.
But Moscow demanded that the United States and its allies keep Ukraine and other former Soviet republics out of NATO, not deploy weapons in Ukraine and withdraw allied forces from Eastern Europe.