Russia’s foreign minister said on Friday that there will be no war with Ukraine – if it is up to them. At the same time, Joe Biden warns that Russia may invade Ukraine next month.
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“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 reports that Lavrov says that the West does 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 they think they can accept from the West, and not, is not clear from Lavrov’s statements on Friday.
Russia has deployed large military forces near the border with Ukraine, and western countries fear the Russians are preparing for an invasion. This has been repeatedly rejected by the Moscow government.
“At least something”
The Foreign Minister also comments the proposals the United States and NATO have sent the Russians, and says that there is “at least something” in them.
The experienced foreign minister says that the proposals the United States put on the table, for how to handle the conflict further, were better than those NATO came up with.
According to Lavrov, President Vladimir Putin will now make an assessment of how Russia will respond to the proposals, which come after they made a number of demands – including who can join NATO, as Ukraine wants, and about Western forces in countries near Russia.
Lavrov has previously said that Russia will take “necessary retaliatory measures” if the United States does not provide a constructive response to Russia’s demands for security guarantees.
–Lavrov also says that he expects to hold a new meeting with his American colleague, Antony Blinken, within the next couple of weeks.
The statements from Lavrov come at the same time as Russia’s Ministry of Defense states that the country has in the last couple of days held naval exercises in the Black Sea with around 20 ships that have fired targets in the air and on the water. The exercise comes as part of an ever-increasing military activity near Ukraine.
–– Warned for several months
On Friday night, US President Joe Biden also spoke about the conflict. According to Emily Horne, White House spokeswoman for security policy, Biden said there was a “real possibility that Russia could invade Ukraine in February.”
It is in a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday that Biden is said to have said this.
– It is the same as he has said publicly, and which we have warned about for several months, says Horne.
In the conversation with Zelensky, Biden is also said to have reiterated that the United States, together with allies and partners, is ready to respond firmly if Russia makes new invasion attempts on Ukraine.
In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
According to Axios Three sources who know about the content of the talks between the two presidents have stated that Zelensky does not believe the danger of invasion is higher now than it has been in recent months.
He is said to have told Biden that he did not like the US rhetoric that an attack could come 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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