Top diplomats from the United States (US) and Russia are set to meet in Sweden on Thursday to discuss the Russian troop build-up at the Ukrainian border. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting in Stockholm.
This comes after Washington threatened Moscow with “high impact economic measures” during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting in the Latvian capital Riga on Wednesday. During the meeting, Blinken raised concerns over a possible Russian invasion of NATO ally Ukraine, saying Moscow has taken “significant aggressive moves.”
“We don’t know whether President (Vladimir) Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so on short order should he so desire,” Blinken said, referring to the accumulation of more than 100,000 Russian troops along the border with Ukraine. “We are prepared to impose severe costs for further Russian aggression in Ukraine. NATO is prepared to reinforce its defences on the eastern flank,” he added.
The top US diplomat insisted that “diplomacy is the only responsible way to resolve this potential crisis,” warning that further intensification of the crisis can have “far-reaching and long-lasting” implications for Russia and its relationship with Europe and the West.
However, Moscow countered the claims regarding Russian aggression at the border by accusing Kyiv of deploying a large number of troops to the conflict zone in Donbas, Eastern Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “More than 120,000 (Ukrainian) troops have been deployed to the conflict zone. This raises our fears that sentiments (in Ukraine) in favour of a military solution to the Donbas problem could prevail.”
Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the US and NATO remarks by retorting: “Western colleagues did not fulfil their respective oral obligations.” He was referring to NATO military drills at its border and America’s arming of Ukraine.
Speaking at a Kremlin ceremony for diplomats, Putin stressed that “Russia will seek reliable and long-term security guarantees” over the growing threats at its western border. “In a dialogue with the US and its allies, we will insist on working out specific agreements that would exclude any further NATO moves eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory,” he added.
Putin said, “We aren’t demanding any special conditions for ourselves and realize that any agreements must take interests of Russia and all Euro-Atlantic countries into account.”
On the same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested establishing a direct line with Moscow amid increasing tensions over the Russian invasion. In an annual address to lawmakers, Zelensky said, “We must tell the truth that we will not be able to end the war without direct talks with Russia,” referring to the eight-year-long conflict in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia has ordered the US embassy staff in Moscow to leave the country in retaliation to the US’ move to expel 27 Russian diplomats last week, adding to the strained diplomatic relations between the two countries. Keeping this in mind, Thursday’s meeting between the two sides with bilateral ties at their lowest point since the Cold War.