United States and Russia They met this Monday in the United Nations Security Council (UN) for the crisis that unleashed for several weeks the concentration of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine.
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The meeting, called by Washington, was held in the face of growing fear of an imminent incursion by Moscow into Ukrainian territory, despite the denials of the Kremlin.
Given the upsurge in tensions, US diplomacy said it was willing to dismantle any “disinformation” in one of the United Nations sessions that has generated the greatest expectation in years.
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In the midst of the debate, Russia said Monday at the UN Security Council that the United States wants to “stir up hysteria” after being accused of wanting to increase its military presence on Ukraine’s borders. While the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, assured that her counterpart will reinforce her troops on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border in the coming days.
“We have evidence that Russia intends to beef up its presence with more than 30,000 troops near Belarus’s border with Ukraine, less than two hours north of Kiev, by early February. If Russia invades Ukraine, none of us will be able to say we didn’t see it coming and the consequences would be horrible,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
But the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, rejected the accusations and assured that no Russian authority has threatened to invade the former Soviet republic and that the Ukrainians have been “brainwashed” with the “Russophobia” of the West.
“The United States is whipping up tensions and rhetoric and causing an escalation. Discussions about a threat of war are provocative in themselves.
They are practically asking for it, they want it to happen,” Nebenzya concluded.
Before the start of the session, Russia tried to prevent the Security Council meeting, but 10 of the 15 members voted in favor of it.
For his part, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, called for a de-escalation in order to resume negotiations on the conflict on Ukrainian territory with the secessionists supported by Moscow in the eastern region of Donbas.
In addition to this key session, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is planning a new telephone meeting this Tuesday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, the latest in a series of diplomatic contacts between Moscow, Washington and Brussels on Ukraine, before the growing concern of Europeans about the security of the Old Continent.
On the other hand, US President Joe Biden warned on Monday that Russia will suffer strong reprisals if Moscow leaves diplomatic channels.
(In other news: US prepared sanctions ‘against members of the Russian elite and their families’)
“We are prepared no matter what happens,” he told reporters at the White House. Even the spokeswoman for the US presidential headquarters stated that Washington has prepared a “package of specific sanctions against members of the Russian elite and their families” that will apply if Russia attacks Ukraine.
For his part, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson travels to Kiev on Tuesday to discuss tensions with the Ukrainian president and asked for Moscow’s commitment to avoid an escalation.
In the midst of this exchange of statements, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, spoke by phone on Monday, for the second time in four days, in an attempt to reduce tensions. The two leaders agreed to continue the contacts, but also, according to the Krem-lin, to study “the possibility” of meeting in person.
AFP
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