The Kremlin considered on Monday “premature” the holding of a summit between Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, and threw a jug of cold water on the French announcement of such a meeting to defuse the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The French presidency announced on Sunday an agreement in principle for the holding of this summit after a marathon diplomatic effort by the French head of state Emmanuel Macron, who held two extensive telephone conversations with Putin on Sunday, in addition to dialogues with Biden and Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky.
Western countries fear that the intensification of fighting in recent days in eastern Ukraine with pro-Russian separatists will serve as a pretext for Moscow, which has deployed 150,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, to invade the neighboring country.
“There is an understanding about the fact of having to continue the dialogue at the level of ministers (of Foreign Affairs). Talking about concrete plans for organizing summits is premature,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov settled before the press on Monday.
“A meeting is possible if the (Russian and American) heads of state deem it useful,” he added, specifying that Biden and Putin always have the opportunity to speak “by phone or otherwise” when “it is necessary.”
A meeting of the heads of Russian and American diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov and Antony Blinken, is scheduled for Thursday.
Regarding the summit now considered “premature” by Moscow, both the United States and France insisted that it could only be held if Russia does not invade Ukraine.
– “Tense” situation at the front –
This Monday, in eastern Ukraine, the clashes continued and, according to Russian security sources, the incidents spread to the territory of this country.
“On February 21 at 9:50 am, an unidentified shell fired from the territory of Ukraine destroyed the place of duty of border guards in the Rostov region, at a distance of about 150 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border,” indicated the FSB (intelligence services), quoted by Russian news agencies.
Kiev indicated in turn that there were 14 bombings by pro-Russian rebels, in which a soldier was injured.
The separatists for their part reported the death of three civilians in the last 24 hours, as well as the explosion of an ammunition depot in the Novoazovsk region, accusing it of “Ukrainian saboteurs”.
This information could not be independently verified.
The authorities of the two self-proclaimed pro-Russian “republics” in eastern Ukraine ordered the mobilization of combat-ready men and the evacuation of civilians to Russia. Moscow said on Monday that 61,000 people had been evacuated from the area.
“They bomb us, they frighten the children. Their planes fly over us and we have seen things explode, catch fire,” one of the evacuees, Liudmila Kliuiko, 56, told AFP upon her arrival in Taganrog in Russia.
The Kremlin reiterated on Monday that the “situation is extremely tense” on the Ukrainian eastern front, and expressed “concern”
The pro-Russian separatists who rose up against Kiev are sustaining a conflict in the east of the country that has left more than 14,000 dead since 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian Crimea.
Moscow now denies having plans to invade Ukraine, but demands guarantees that this former Soviet republic will never join NATO and an end to the expansion of that alliance to its borders. Their demands have so far been rejected by the West.
Western countries have threatened devastating economic sanctions in the event of a crackdown on Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin plans to chair a meeting of his Security Council, a powerful body that brings together the main leaders of the army and intelligence services, this Monday at noon.