Secretary of State Antony Blinken hopes to ease soaring bilateral tensions with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov when the two speak by phone Tuesday, less than 24 hours after U.S. and Russian diplomats traded charges of provocation and aggression at a special U.N. Security Council meeting devoted to the deepening crisis over Ukraine.
Tuesday’s high-stakes call will be the first between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Lavrov since the Biden administration delivered a letter last week formally rejecting Russia‘s demand that the U.S. and Europe halt all eastward expansion of NATO and pull back in Eastern Europe — a demand accompanied by a massive build-up of Russian troops and weaponry on three sides of neighboring Ukraine.
Russia‘s buildup of more than 100,000 troops and heavy artillery on Ukraine‘s borders has set nerves on edge in Kyiv, where a fragile democracy is under threat of being swallowed by authoritarian Russia, while the U.S. and Western Europe have resorted to threats of harsh sanctions on the Kremlin if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not pull back.
Ukraine‘s top security official warned the West on Monday against forcing the country to enter into a peace deal for eastern Ukraine with pro-Russian separatist groups brokered by France and Germany, charging that an attempt to implement it could trigger internal unrest that would ultimately benefit Moscow.
While President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has chided Washington in recent days for comments that war may be imminent, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told The Associated Press in an interview that the onetime Soviet republic has the capability to call up to 2.5 million people if Russia does invade.
While he said some 120,000 Russian troops are concentrated near Ukraine and Moscow may stage provocations “at any moment,” Mr. Danilov argued that launching a full-fledged invasion would require massive preparations that would be easily spotted.
His comments coincide with brinkmanship soaring around Ukraine amid fears of an invasion. Western analysts claim Moscow seeks to expand its control over Ukraine‘s east by building upon gains Russian forces made when they swept in and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
The threat of invasion has also spooked global energy markets, with the prospect that Washington and the European Union could retaliate with major sanctions against Russia, and that Moscow could in turn respond by cutting off its vital gas supplies to Western Europe.
With that as a backdrop Monday, the top Russian diplomat at the U.N. claimed it’s the West — not Russia — that has been stoking tensions over Ukraine.
Stormy session
During a stormy and at times bellicose U.N. Security Council debate, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the Biden administration of “whipping up tensions and rhetoric and provoking escalation.”
U.S. U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield shot back that Russia‘s aggressive military moves represent “the largest mobilization” in Europe in decades, adding there has also been a spike in cyberattacks and Russian disinformation targeting Kyiv. “They are attempting, without any factual basis, to paint Ukraine and Western countries as the aggressors to fabricate a pretext for attack,” she said.
The harsh and unusually pointed dispute came as Moscow lost an attempt to block the Security Council meeting for convening in the first place, with only China supporting its move to cancel the session. It was the first open session where all protagonists in the Ukraine crisis were present, even though the U.N.’s most powerful body took no action and Russia, which coincidentally takes over the monthlong rotating chairmanship of the body Tuesday, having a veto over any formal action.
The U.N. clash puts even more pressure on Tuesday’s direct phone call between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Lavrov to find a way to ease tensions and build a diplomatic “off-ramp” for the two sides. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was reportedly set to speak to Mr. Putin by phone before traveling to Ukraine on Tuesday, telling reporters he would urge the Russian leader to “step back from the brink.”
Russia has demanded that NATO promise never to allow Ukraine to join the alliance, halt the deployment of NATO weapons near Russian borders, and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe. NATO and the U.S. call those nonstarters, but have said they are willing to discuss other measures to lower the security tensions on Russia‘s western borders.
Previous attempts at direct talks over the past month have produced little obvious progress, although Mr. Blinken stressed to reporters last week that U.S. officials made clear in written responses to Russian demands that a “serious diplomatic path” remains open.
Despite that assertion, Mr. Nebenzia made the extraordinary argument Monday that U.S. officials were privately hoping Russia invades. “You are almost pulling for this,” he said, looking at Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. “You want it to happen. You’re waiting for it to happen, as if you want to make your words become a reality.”
The Russian diplomat blamed the U.S. for the 2014 toppling of a Kremlin-friendly president in Kyiv in the so-called Maidan Revolution, saying it brought to power “nationalists, radicals, Russophobes and pure Nazis,” and created the antagonism between Ukraine and Russia.
“If they hadn’t done this, then we today would be living in a spirit of good neighborly relations and mutual cooperation,” Mr. Nebenzia said. “However, some in the West just don’t clearly like this positive scenario. What’s happening today is yet another attempt to drive a wedge between Russia and Ukraine.”
Chinese officials backed Russia on Monday. While China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun had said last week that he thought the Security Council would be a good forum to try and “de-escalate the situation,” Beijing joined with Moscow on Monday in voting to try and block the Security Council meeting from happening. The motion lost on a 10-2 vote, with three abstentions.
President Biden said in a statement that the meeting was “a critical step in rallying the world to speak out in one voice” to reject the use of force, seek military de-escalation, support diplomacy and demand accountability from every member ‘to refrain from military aggression against its neighbors.’”
In a move meant to send a signal, the Pentagon announced over the weekend that a new contingent of American troops and 200 pieces of heavy combat equipment was being rotated into a NATO battle group located in Poland. The Polish government, meanwhile, revealed it has offered to send “defensive” ammunition to Ukraine after talks with U.S., Ukrainian and NATO officials.
Mr. Biden has ruled out U.S. troops fighting inside NATO, but has put some 8,500 American troops on “high alert” for possible rapid deployment to Eastern Europe, and had not ruled out increasing that number in the near future.
A bill for dramatically tougher sanctions against Russia if it invades is also moving swiftly through Congress this week. The Associated Press reported Monday that sanctions under consideration would apparently be significantly stronger than those imposed after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Those penalties have been seen as ineffective.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat, said on Sunday that in the event of an attack, lawmakers want Russia to face “the mother of all sanctions.” That includes actions against Russian banks that could severely undermine the Russian economy and increased lethal aid to Ukraine‘s military.
• Jeff Mordock and Mike Glenn contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.