Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is still heating up. The dialogue held in Geneva, Switzerland to resolve the Kyiv crisis together with the United States (US) did not produce any results.
Russia said dialogue held earlier this week had hit a stalemate while persuading the US to bar Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Moscow has also repeated demands to roll back decades of alliance expansion in Europe, which Washington says is unacceptable.
“At this stage it is really disappointing,” Russian Ambassador Alexander Lukashevich told reporters after a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Reuters Friday (14/1/2022).
He warned of possible “disastrous consequences” if the two sides could not agree on a Russian-style security red line. On the other hand, Moscow is also not giving up on diplomacy and is even going to accelerate it.
In Washington, the White House said the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained high, with about 100,000 Moscow troops deployed. The US itself will announce its actions within 24 hours if Russia carries out its plan.
“The war drama is loud, and the rhetoric is getting a bit shrill,” US Ambassador to the OSCE, Michael Carpenter, said after talks with Russia in Vienna.
“The threat of military invasion is high,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters. “No date has been set for further talks. We must consult with allies and partners first.”
Poland also said the same thing. Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said Europe was at risk of plunging into war because Russia had not given up on diplomacy with Ukraine.
“It seems that the risk of war in the OSCE region is now greater than it has been in the last 30 years,” Rau told the 57-nation security forum.
Rau reported no breakthrough at the Vienna meeting, which Russia-US participated in. talks in Geneva on Monday and the Russia-NATO conference in Brussels on Wednesday.
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine and NATO itself began in 2014. Russia has seized the Crimean peninsula from Kiev and is supporting a separatist insurgency seeking to merge the region with Moscow.
This angered several NATO countries. The US and Europe have been busy strafing economic sanctions against Russia due to this annexation. Even NATO countries had time to send warships to the area on the lips of the Black Sea.
(tfa)
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