The shell fire in eastern Ukraine over the past 48 hours is part of Russia’s efforts to create “false provocations” to justify “aggression” against the former Soviet republic, the US Secretary of State said on Friday.
What has happened “in the last 24-48 hours is part of a scenario that is already installed to create false provocations, to then have to respond to those provocations and in the end start a new aggression against Ukraine”, said Antony Blinken in the security conference in Munich (southern Germany).
“We do everything in our power to clearly indicate that there is a diplomatic path” to this crisis between the West and Russia, but “we are deeply concerned that this is not the path that Russia chooses,” Blinken deplored,
The secretary of state already made similar accusations on Thursday before the United Nations Security Council.
Eastern Ukraine was the scene this Friday of new bombings of which the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists accuse each other, which increases tension in the region and, in the eyes of the West, the risks of a Russian invasion.
Russia denies any intention to carry out an invasion but demands that Western countries not extend NATO to their borders.
It would be “catastrophic” if the crisis between Russia and Ukraine degenerated into war, declared for his part, this Friday, the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, at the opening of that annual conference on security in Munich Russia, normally present at this meeting, did not send representatives this year.