WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Sunday that President Biden was still willing to talk to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, despite the US administration’s assessment that Mr. Putin has already decided to invade Ukraine.
“We believe President Putin has made the decision, but until the tanks are really rolling and the planes are flying, we will take every opportunity and every minute we have to see if diplomacy can still stop President Putin from doing this.” continue,” he said. Blinken said on DailyExpertNews’s “State of the Union.”
Mr Biden and Mr Putin last spoke by phone for an hour on Feb. 12. In that conversation, Mr Biden warned Mr Putin that another invasion of Ukraine would result in “quick and serious” costs to Russia. Mr Biden has pledged to impose tough economic sanctions on Russia if Mr Putin carries out an invasion, although Beijing, which has strengthened its ties with Moscow, could help mitigate those penalties.
Mr Biden said Friday that he believed Russia would invade Ukraine within days. In recent weeks, the Russian military has deployed more than 150,000 troops around Ukraine, along the country’s western border with Ukraine, in the Crimean peninsula that Russia captured from Ukraine in 2014, and in Belarus, which is a pro- Moscow government. US officials describe it as the largest military build-up in Europe since World War II.
Mr Blinken said on Sunday that Russia is still taking all the steps expected by the United States for what could be a violent and large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“As we’ve described it, everything leading to the actual invasion seems to be happening,” he said, hours after returning from the Munich security conference, where he and Vice President Kamala Harris were trying to rally countries to put pressure on them. Russia to avert the crisis.
He also criticized Russia’s decision to keep troops in Belarus after this weekend, when joint military exercises between the Allies were set to end. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that the countries would extend the exercises. US officials have warned that the exercises could serve as a cover for Russia to position forces closer to the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
“Now they justify the continuation of exercises that they said would now end,” said Mr Blinken, describing it as part of Russia “continuing to ramp up tensions.”
Mr Blinken and Mr Biden have said that Russia would try to create a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine, perhaps in the form of violent “false flag” operations that Moscow would attribute to the Ukrainian military, and conduct a disinformation campaign to the justification for action. Russian-backed insurgents in eastern Ukraine have stepped up their artillery shelling against Ukrainian troops and civilian areas in recent days. Pro-Russian officials controlling the city of Donetsk have ordered residents to evacuate, claiming without evidence that the Ukrainian military is about to attack.
The State Department said Thursday that Mr. Blinken had accepted an invitation from Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, to meet in Europe this week. The two struck a conciliatory note when they met in Geneva on January 21. But in the weeks that followed, Mr Putin gathered his forces around Ukraine.
