In Ukraine, Blinken warned of an imminent Russian attack on the border

Kiev – Two days before the meeting of the US Secretary of State in Geneva with the Russian Foreign Minister, Anthony Blink, this Wednesday, the 19th, that Russia can attack Ukraine At any time be warned of confrontation and consequences if you do.

Blinken made the remarks while speaking with US officials at the US embassy in the Ukrainian capital, where he landed Wednesday morning in the latest show of US support for the embattled country’s government.

Blinken said Russia was already supporting an insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and Moscow’s decision to deploy a massive force near the country’s eastern border was a major concern.

“We know that there are plans to increase this force further in the very short term and this gives President Putin the ability, also in the very short term, to take more aggressive action against Ukraine,” he said.

Both the Kremlin and US officials sounded pessimistic after the third round of talks on Eastern European security last week, with a Russian diplomat saying talks with the West were approaching a “stalemate”.

In this scenario, in the morning Blinkin met with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr ZelenskyAnd then with his foreign minister, Dimitro Kuleba.

It was not clear whether Blinken had promised them specific new support measures to deter Moscow or to fight the Russian military in the event of a large-scale invasion, but a State Department official confirmed Wednesday that the Biden administration had agreed in the month. $200 million defense security aid to Ukraine.

Blinkin is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Friday in Geneva. US officials played down hopes of any progress at the meeting, which they described as an opportunity to test whether Moscow was serious about the talks. But the White House also said on Tuesday it hoped to highlight that “there is a diplomatic path forward.”

Russia has deployed about 100,000 troops along its western border with Ukraine, although exact estimates vary. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that “Russia can, at any time, launch an attack on Ukraine.”

Russian officials are urging the United States to provide an official written response to a set of demands from the Kremlin, which included a legally binding pledge by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to never accept Ukraine as a member.

US officials gave no indication that Blinken would hand such a document to Lavrov.

Speaking at a forum in Moscow on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov reiterated his government’s earlier denials that Moscow had plans to move its forces to Ukraine.