Ukraine: Blinken and Russian Lavrov meet amid tensions over Ukraine
Blinken said he and Lavrov would report details of their meeting to President Joe Biden and President Vladimir Putin and that the two presidents “may have the opportunity to speak directly in the near future.”
Until then, he said it was Russia’s responsibility to defuse growing tension over its military moves and disinformation targeting Ukraine.
“It is now up to Russia to defuse the current tensions by reversing the recent build-up of troops, returning forces to normal peacetime positions and refraining from further intimidation and attempts to destabilize Ukraine,” said Blinken said at a press conference at the Organization for Security and Cooperation at European Summit.
U.S. officials told CNN that plans for a conversation between Biden and Putin had not been finalized, but that work was underway to organize an appeal as Russian troops gather on the Ukrainian border.
Biden told reporters last week that he would speak to Putin “in all likelihood” soon about the situation in Ukraine. He said direct communication with Putin was the best way to avoid conflicts between the two countries.
“Deep concerns”
The last publicly announced phone call between Biden and Putin came in July, about a month after their in-person summit in Geneva.
Blinken and Lavrov met on the sidelines of the OSCE summit. Their 30-minute conversation did not lead to a concrete path forward, but the two sides agreed to continue diplomatic conversations, a senior US State Department official told reporters traveling with the top US diplomat.
Blinken also held a bilateral meeting earlier Thursday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, in which the senior US diplomat reiterated Washington’s “unwavering commitment to territorial integrity, sovereignty and the independence of Ukraine “.
Blinken did not expose the “grave consequences” he threatened if Russia invaded Ukraine, according to the senior US State Department official.
The official, who described Blinken’s meeting with Lavrov as sober and professional, said the meeting resulted in an agreement to continue diplomatic conversations and the United States was able to clearly articulate concerns about the strengthening. of the Russian army.
According to the State Department, Blinken “addressed Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, including its military movements near Ukraine’s borders” and “reiterated the United States’ call for Russia to withdraw its forces and return to a peacetime posture â€and adhere to the 2015 Minsk Accords – an effort to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine – and a ceasefire fire in the Donbass region.
The Minsk Protocol was drafted by Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE with the mediation of France and Germany. On Thursday, Blinken said he told Lavrov the United States was ready to get involved and had already offered to do so with Ukraine’s top diplomat.
“And as with Foreign Minister Kuleba, I have also made it clear that the United States is ready to work with both sides to support a diplomatic resolution by implementing the Minsk Accords in any way possible.” , did he declare.
Combat troops
Pentagon spokesman Ned Price said in his reading that Blinken “stressed that the best way forward is diplomacy in conjunction with the full implementation of the Minsk Accords, a process that the United States is willing and ready to support “.
The United States and NATO claim that Russia is increasing the number of combat troops near its border with Ukraine, while the Kremlin has repeatedly denied that Russia is considering invading Ukraine and is considering the NATO support to the country as a threat to Russia’s western border.
In his own remarks to the press after his meeting with Blinken, Lavrov stressed that although Russia “does not want any conflict” with NATO over Ukraine, it retains the “right to choose means of securing its legitimate security interests “.
“And let us not forget, of course, the proclaimed principle of indivisibility and security, including in the OSCE, in the NATO Council of Russia, which says that no one has the right to strengthen his security to the detriment of the security of others, “he said, also adding that” NATO’s continued advance eastward will certainly affect the fundamental interests “of Russia’s security.
The United States, for its part, has again warned that there will be “grave consequences” if Russia agrees to “continue the confrontation” with Ukraine.
Blinken told summit attendees on Thursday that the United States was “deeply concerned about Russia’s plans for further aggression against Ukraine.”
This aggression “would move us in exactly the opposite direction,” Blinken said, stressing that “it is just not in nobody’s best interest.”
He added that “the best way to avoid the crisis is through diplomacy”, calling on Russia to respect the Minsk peace accords. Interpretation of Minsk and other core OSCE documents has emerged as a sticking point between the two countries, with Lavrov saying it “is clear” that the US and Russia interpret them in “different ways. “.
Blinken criticized Russia’s accession to the Helsinki Final Act, a multilateral agreement dating from 1975. This non-binding diplomatic agreement recognized the inviolability of national borders created after World War II and the importance of non-compliance. -interference in the internal affairs of a nation, but Russia also saw it as implicitly recognizing its hegemony in Eastern Europe. Blinken said Russia “continues to violate the Helsinki principles and repeatedly obstruct the work of this organization.”
Despite the accusations, the two officials acknowledged the importance of dialogue, Lavrov acknowledging “the importance of our two states for global stability and security, including in the Euro-Atlantic area”.
Price said Blinken brought up the cases of two Americans detained in Russia – Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed – “and underlined the priority we attach to their early release.”
The Secretary and the Foreign Minister noted the importance of continued coordination on issues in bilateral relations and where interests are aligned, including when it comes to blocking Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon, â€he said.
The OSCE summit follows a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Latvia, dominated by concerns over recent events in Belarus and Russia’s intentions in Ukraine.
Speaking on Wednesday after the meeting in Latvia, Blinken said the United States and its NATO partners were ready to impose costs for further Russian aggression against Ukraine and were preparing for “all eventualities” so. that Russia continues to take troubling measures.
Although Blinken has not specified what these sanctions will be, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Wednesday that the alliance has “a wide range of options. : economic sanctions, financial sanctions, political restrictions “.
Putin on Wednesday called for specific agreements that would exclude any further NATO expansion eastward and the deployment of its weapons near Russia’s borders.
On Tuesday, the Russian president said that NATO’s military expansion near Russian borders and that any deployment of missile systems in Ukraine would cross a “red line”.
CNN’s Alex Marquardt reported from Stockholm, Jennifer Hansler from Washington, Niamh Kennedy from London and Anna Chernova from Moscow. CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi, Michael Conte, Kevin Liptak and Nicole Gaouette contributed from Washington.