Russia’s foreign minister said on Friday that there would be no war with Ukraine – if it was up to them. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has warned that Russia may invade Ukraine next month.
“We do not want a war with Ukraine, but we will not accept that our interests are ignored,” Sergei Lavrov told Reuters.
The news agency also reported that Lavrov says that the West is doing just that.
According to him, there will be no war if it is up to them, but exactly where Russia will draw the line for what it thinks it can accept from the West, is not clear from Lavrov’s statements on Friday.
Russia has deployed large military forces near the border with Ukraine, and Western countries fear that the Russians are preparing for an invasion. The Moscow government has repeatedly rejected this.
“at least something”
Foreign Minister also comments Proposals sent by the United States and NATO to the RussiansAnd he says there’s “at least something” inside of them.
The seasoned secretary of state says the proposals the United States has put on the table, on how to further address the conflict, have been better than those that NATO has come up with.
According to Lavrov, President Vladimir Putin will now assess how Russia will respond to the proposals, which come after they have made a number of demands – including who can join NATO, as Ukraine wants, and about Western forces in countries close to Russia.
Lavrov said that before Russia will take “necessary retaliatory measures” If the United States does not provide a response based on Russia’s demands for security guarantees.
Lavrov also says he expects to have a new meeting with fellow American, Anthony Blinken, within the next two weeks.
Lavrov’s comments come at the same time that the Russian Defense Ministry said that in the past two days the country conducted naval maneuvers in the Black Sea with about 20 ships that launched targets in the air and on the water. The exercises come as part of an ever-increasing military activity near Ukraine.
Caution for several months
On Friday evening, US President Joe Biden also spoke about the conflict. According to Emily Horne, a White House spokeswoman for security policy, Biden said there is a “real possibility that Russia may invade Ukraine in February.”
Biden is said to have said this in a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday.
It’s the same thing he said publicly, which he warned us about months ago, says Horn.
In the conversation with Zelensky, Biden was also said to have reiterated that the United States, along with allies and partners, was ready to respond decisively if Russia made new attempts to invade Ukraine.
In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea.
according to Axios Three sources familiar with the content of the talks between the two presidents reported that Zelensky does not believe the threat of invasion is higher now than it has been in recent months.
He is said to have told Biden that he does not like the American rhetoric that an attack could happen at any time, because his government fears it will have negative consequences for the country’s economy and the morale of the population.
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