More dialogue to avoid a collision with dramatic consequences for Europe. The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, have agreed this Friday at a meeting in Geneva to continue diplomatic talks on the crisis with Ukraine and the expansion of NATO. At a peak of tension due to the concentration of Russian troops along the borders with Ukraine and when diplomatic efforts follow one another, Blinken promised to send in writing his "ideas" and proposals to Moscow on his demands, which demand that the Atlantic Alliance do not expand into Russia and withdraw from what you consider to be your sphere of influence. After this, new talks are planned to de-escalate the major crisis, which has raised the alert in Kiev,NATO and the EU due to fears that Russia will initiate a new military aggression against Ukraine.
The Geneva talks, at the end of a hyperactive round of diplomacy on several fronts to head off the crisis, have not been a game changer, but they do buy potentially valuable time. While open to more dialogue, Russia, which has already concentrated some 106,000 soldiers near the Ukrainian borders, continues to mobilize troops. The Kremlin has only two options, Blinken warned: "Choose diplomacy for European security or conflict with massive consequences." Following a 90-minute meeting at a hotel by Lake Geneva, Lavrov dismissed Western "hysteria" about Ukraine and reiterated that Moscow had no plans to attack the neighboring country. The heads of Moscow and Washington diplomacy held separate press conferences.
Russia has demanded in writing a reply to the draft treaty that it sent in December, when the situation was beginning to heat up, to NATO and the United States, whom it considers its main interlocutor, and in which it includes the commitment that the Alliance renounce new members among the countries of the former USSR (such as Georgia and Ukraine, which received the accession proposal in 2008, although their accession is not on the table mainly due to lack of reforms). It also demands that NATO and Washington halt all military activity in Eastern Europe (where it has no bases but does deploy multi-national battalions in rotations in Poland and the Baltics), Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Blinken has stressed that there will be no talks on Ukraine – or any other sovereign state – without Ukraine.
Neither will there be talk about NATO without the Atlantic Alliance, or the EU without the EU, he stressed at a press conference.
"Russia has a choice, we can continue to work on mutual security and choose European security diplomacy or conflict, which would trigger massive consequences," Blinken warned.
In a calm tone and in a separate press conference, Lavrov commented that he hoped that "emotions" about Ukraine would calm down and assured that Russia does not represent a threat to its neighboring country.
“I can't say yet whether or not we are on the right track.
We will understand this when we get the American response on paper on all points of our proposals,” Lavrov said.
Russia continues to mobilize its army near the borders with Ukraine with soldiers arriving from different parts of the country, according to satellite images and also numerous videos broadcast on social networks.
A deployment to which are added numerous maneuvers on its eastern flanks, in Belarus (also along the border with Ukraine), in the Caucasus and even naval, in the Black Sea but also in the Mediterranean in another display of military muscle.
Ukrainian intelligence sources estimate that Moscow has already concentrated some 106,000 soldiers with heavy and sophisticated weapons along its borders;
also to tactical groups.
In addition, it has also concentrated troops in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, illegally annexed in 2014.
Diplomatic efforts continue.
This Friday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö, spoke by phone about the situation.
"Moscow," Putin told him, according to the Kremlin transcript, "waits waiting for the written, concrete and detailed response promised by the negotiating partners to the preliminary documents on the provision of legal guarantees for Russia's security."
Niinistö also spoke this week with US President Joe Biden.
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