The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, begins a series of meetings in Europe and makes his first stop in the Ukrainian capital, where he has met with Zelensky to address the increase in tensions with Moscow
Amid the escalation of tensions in recent weeks between Kiev and Moscow, the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, landed in the Ukrainian capital, in a visit that aims to demonstrate “support for the sovereignty and integrity territory” of the country by Washington, according to the spokesman for the US State Department, Ned Price.
“This is a critical moment for Ukraine, ” Blinken explained at a press conference with Kristina Kvien, Chargé d’Affaires of the United States Embassy in Ukraine. “I fervently hope that we can keep this on a diplomatic and peaceful path, but ultimately that will be President Putin’s decision,” he added, warning that if the Russian president prefers to advocate an aggressive stance, then he will be opting for “the confrontation and the consequences for Russia”.
During his brief stay in Kiev, the US Secretary of State met with President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to address the Russian threat on the border. “We are now at a stage where Russia could launch an attack on Ukraine at any time,” Blinken said. In addition, the US official added that Moscow is trying to “challenge some very basic principles that support the entire international system and that are necessary to try to maintain peace and security; principles such as that one nation cannot simply change another’s borders by force.”
Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky
“If we allow those principles to be violated with impunity, then we will open a very big Pandora’s box. The whole world is watching what is happening here.”
Blinken’s visit takes place just a few weeks after Washington announced aid of 200 million dollars (more than 175 million euros) to the Kiev government. And, although the details of the items that make up this aid package “for assistance in security and defense” of Ukraine are still unknown, this represents the largest endowment provided by the US since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
In turn, Blinken’s stay in the Ukrainian country has served as a brief preface to his trip to Berlin, where he is going to meet with his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, to consider the options on the table in the face of the hypothetical Russian advance towards Ukraine. Likewise, also in the German capital, Blinken and Baerbock will be part of a meeting of the Transatlantic Quad – a group made up of diplomatic representatives from France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the USA –, with the aim of continuing to evaluate the situation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
However, the most anticipated meeting of Blinken’s trip will take place on January 21, when the US Secretary of State travels to the Swiss city of Geneva to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Both diplomats met by phone a few days ago to assess last week’s meetings between Russia, the US and their allies, although – according to a senior US State Department official – both Blinken and Lavrov concluded that it would be “more useful” to meet in person during the American’s trip to Kiev and Berlin. Thus, the announcement of this meeting in Geneva, just a few hours before Blinken’s departure for the European continent, shows the frenetic pace of negotiations whose result is still up in the air.
“I am not going to present any document to Foreign Minister Lavrov. We need to see where we are and see if there are any opportunities left to continue diplomacy and dialogue,” said the US representative after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba. Well, despite While expectations about the meeting are not entirely pessimistic, Washington’s position is remarkably cautious.
This meeting, which has been described by the senior State Department official as “an opportunity” to share concerns and find common ground, will take place around military movements and Russian security demands. Some demands that include the guarantee that Ukraine will not enter NATO, as well as the withdrawal of Alliance troops from the territories bordering Russia that are part of the former Soviet sphere – despite the fact that these are members of the organization, as is the case in Latvia or Lithuania –. Some demands that, for its part, NATO has rejected.
Meanwhile, Putin’s regional ally – Alexander Lukashenko – has announced the arrival of Russian troops in Belarusian territory with the aim of carrying out joint military exercises. In this regard, a member of the US State Department stated at a press conference that Moscow could be carrying out an additional “show of force” prior to a possible attack. “The fact that we are seeing this move into Belarus allows the Russians another approach should they decide to take further military action against Ukraine,” Blinken said.
In this sense, several US officials have expressed their fear of the increase in methods that, although they do not involve a direct invasion, collaborate in the destabilization of Ukraine. Some of them would be digital warfare, disinformation activities, cyberattacks – like the one that broke into the official website of Kiev last Friday – or “false flag” operations.