Moscow on Tuesday rejected fresh talks on Ukraine unless the West responds to its demands, as the US and NATO pushed for more negotiations to avert a possible Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbour.
With tens of thousands of Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s borders, efforts have intensified to prevent a conflict and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was preparing to fly to Kyiv for talks on Wednesday.
Blinken’s trip, which will also take him to Berlin for meetings Thursday with European allies, is the latest in a flurry of diplomacy to prevent the tensions over Ukraine from escalating into a new war in Europe.
Talks in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna last week failed to ease fears, with Russia insisting its demands for sweeping security guarantees — including a permanent ban on Ukraine joining NATO — be taken seriously.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that there would be no further negotiations until the West gives it proper answers.
“We are now awaiting responses to these proposals — as we were promised — in order to continue negotiations,” he said at a joint press conference with visiting German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
“Let’s hope these talks will continue,” Lavrov said.
Washington has outright rejected the demands, which also include limits on allied deployments in former Warsaw Pact allies like Poland and the ex-Soviet Baltic states that joined NATO after the Cold War.
In a call with Lavrov ahead of his trip, Blinken “stressed the importance of continuing a diplomatic path to de-escalate tensions,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg also left the door open to more talks, saying he had invited Russia and NATO allies to a series of discussions in the NATO-Russia Council “in the near future”.
They aim to “address our concerns but also listen to Russia’s concerns, and to try to find a way forward to prevent any military attack against Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told a news conference in Berlin.
The State Department said Blinken would fly to Ukraine and meet Wednesday with President Volodymyr Zelensky, to “reinforce the United States’ commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
