Asked in Geneva by a reporter if he thought, like US President Joe Biden, that an invasion was likely, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov used some interesting language.
“Unless the United States doesn’t go to bed with Ukraine, I don’t think so,” Lavrov said as quoted by CNN on Saturday.
A meeting between State Secretary Anthony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday ended with no breakthrough.
In the meantime the first shipment of the United States’ $200m security support package for Ukraine has arrived in Kyiv, the US embassy said.
The delivery followed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Kyiv this week amid concerns from Ukraine and its Western allies over tens of thousands of Russian troops amassed at the border with Ukraine. Russia denies planning a new military offensive.
Washington had approved the $200m package in December.
“The United States will continue providing such assistance to support Ukraine’s armed forces in their ongoing effort to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity against Russian aggression,” the embassy said on Facebook on Saturday.
Ukraine’s defence minister thanked the US for the aid.
Meanwhile, the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will send US-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine in a move that Blinken said Washington was fully endorsing.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, earlier this week described Western arms supplies to Ukraine as extremely dangerous and said they “do nothing to reduce tensions”.
The West has rejected Moscow’s main demands – promises from NATO that Ukraine will never be added as a member, that no alliance weapons will be deployed near Russian borders, and that it will pull back its forces from Central and Eastern Europe.
What does it mean for countries to ‘go to bed’? All of this high-stakes geopolitical chess, then, comes down to how intimate the US gets with Ukraine in the eyes of Russia.
After meeting with Lavrov in Geneva, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated there would be steep consequences for an invasion, but also that the two countries are still talking. The US will provide a written response to Russia’s concerns within the next week.
Putin’s desire to somehow reconstitute the power of the Soviet Union is no secret. Spreading Russian power further into Ukraine would be a logical step and a direct challenge to Western democracies. / Argumentum.al
