Ukraine Tension: US And Russia Hold ‘frank’ Talks – BBC News

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, have both described talks in Geneva on Ukraine as “frank”.

The US is expected to put its position in writing next week, after which further discussions will be held.

There are fears that a huge Russian military force assembled near Ukraine’s borders will be used to invade.

The US and its allies have threatened new sanctions, while Russia itself denies planning to attack.

With an estimated 100,000 Russian troops deployed near Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has issued demands to the West which he says concern Russia’s security, including that Ukraine be stopped from joining Nato.

He wants the Western defensive alliance to abandon military exercises and stop sending weapons to eastern Europe, seeing this as a direct threat to Russia’s security.

Russia seized and annexed the Crimean peninsula in southern Ukraine in 2014 after Ukrainians overthrew their pro-Russian president. Russian-backed rebels also control large areas of eastern Ukraine near Russia’s borders following a bloody war with government forces.

There are fears that the smouldering conflict in the east, which claimed 14,000 lives and caused at least two million people to flee their homes, may reignite and that Russia’s military will cross the border.

Mr Blinken warned his Russian counterpart of a “united, swift and severe” response if Russia invaded.

Speaking after the talks, he said the US was prepared to pursue possible means of addressing Russian concerns in the spirit of reciprocity.

Beforehand, analysts mooted this might include more transparency on military exercises in the region, or reviving restrictions on missiles in Europe. These rules were previously set out in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War-era pact that the US scrapped in 2019, after accusing Russia of violating the deal.

Mr Blinken also urged Russia to stop what he called its aggression towards Ukraine, saying the troop build-up gave it the ability to attack Ukraine from the south, east and north.

He said the US knew from experience that Moscow also had an “extensive playbook” of non-military ways of furthering its interests, including cyber attacks.

Mr Blinken said the talks had also touched on Iran and negotiations over its nuclear capabilities, which he called an example of how the US and Russia can work together on security issues.

For his part, Mr Lavrov described the talks as open and useful but he accused Nato of working against Russia. He reiterated Moscow’s position that it had “never threatened the Ukrainian people” and had no plans to attack Ukraine.

He also accused the Ukrainian government of using “state terrorism” against the rebels in the east and “sabotaging” the Minsk peace agreements on the conflict there.

Russia’s foreign minister said the US would send “written responses” to all of Russia’s proposals next week but Mr Blinken only said America hoped to share its “concerns and ideas in more detail in writing next week”.

“Antony Blinken agreed that we need to have a reasonable dialogue, and I hope emotions will decrease,” Mr Lavrov said.

The talks between the two diplomats came just a day after Russia unveiled plans for naval drills involving more than 140 warships and more than 60 aircraft, seen as a show of strength.

Also on Thursday, the US said Russian intelligence officers had been recruiting current and former Ukrainian government officials to step in as a provisional government and co-operate with an occupying Russian force in the event of an invasion.

Mr Blinken arrived in Geneva after a trip to Kyiv to show support for Ukraine, and talks with Britain, France and Germany in Berlin.

Several European nations have now moved to bolster Nato’s military deployment in eastern Europe. Spain is sending warships to join Nato naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and Denmark also said it would send a frigate to the Baltic Sea.

French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to send troops to Romania.

Earlier this week, Britain announced it was supplying Ukraine with extra troops for training and defensive weapons.

In a speech on Friday, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called on Mr Putin to “desist and step back from Ukraine before he makes a massive strategic mistake” that would lead to terrible loss of life.

President Biden had triggered questions about the consistency of the US line on Ukraine on Wednesday, when he bleakly predicted that Russia would “move in” on Ukraine, but appeared to suggest a “minor incursion” could attract a weaker response from the US and its allies.

The message drew a rebuke from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who tweeted: “There are no minor incursions. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones.”

Mr Biden then sought to clarify by saying any Russian troop movement across Ukraine’s border would qualify as an invasion and that Moscow would “pay a heavy price”.

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