The winds of war are blowing ever stronger in Ukraine.
Antony Blinken reiterated that Russia could create a "false pretext" to invade Ukraine.
"No one should be surprised if Russia creates an accident to justify the military action it had always planned," said the US Secretary of State who yesterday had a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov.
"The news coming from Ukraine is very worrying. I entrust every effort for peace to the intercession of the Virgin Mary and to the conscience of political leaders",
Pope Francis
said at the Angelus, adding to the faithful: "Let us pray in silence" .
The situation of
the Ukrainian crisis has become "critical", said a German government source
, on the eve of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's visits to Kiev and Moscow.
"Our concern has grown" and "we think the situation is critical, very dangerous," the source explained to reporters in Berlin.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, departing for Kiev while on Tuesday visiting Vladimir Putin in Moscow, stressed that
if Russia were to invade Ukraine, Western sanctions would be "immediate"
.
After the US alarm about the risk of an imminent invasion, diplomacy tries to play the last cards to avoid armed confrontation.
But
no breakthrough has come from the conversation between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin
.
On the contrary.
In a phone call that lasted just over an hour yesterday, the two leaders essentially reaffirmed their positions.
The US president threatens: 'If you invade you will pay dearly'.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken returned to the decision to evacuate the US embassy in Kiev, followed by other Western countries.
The risk of military intervention and "the threat is imminent," he said, calling the operation "the most prudent thing to do".
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea have pledged to work together to discourage further Russian escalation along the Ukrainian border and have condemned North Korea's recent ballistic missile launches. .
Bloomberg reports it.
Blinken, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong stressed the "paramount importance" of strong cooperation between their countries for regional stability in a joint statement following the talks in Hawaii.
Ministers also pledged their "unwavering support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity".
As for the threat posed by Pyongyang,
Blinken and his counterparts expressed "expressed deep concern about the destabilizing nature" of the recent ballistic missile launches, calling on North Korea to engage in dialogue.
"It is clear to all of us that Pyongyang is in a provocative phase," Blinken said at a joint press conference, noting that the United States, Japan and South Korea are working closely together to "achieve complete denuclearization and lasting peace in the country. Korean Peninsula ".
For Ukraine at this moment there is no reason to close its airspace, despite the increase in tensions with Russia and the 130,000 Moscow troops amassed on the border.
"It doesn't make sense and would look a lot like self-isolation," said Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukrainian presidential adviser, according to the Guardian.