The Kremlin has been repeating for several days that it is withdrawing its troops from the Ukrainian border, Washinton does not believe a word of it and even predicts the opposite. “The elements on the ground indicate that Russia is heading for an imminent invasion” of Ukraine, said Thursday the American ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
The diplomat said she had asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to attend a long-scheduled UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Thursday morning in New York. He comes “to make it clear to the world that we are doing everything possible to prevent a war,” the American ambassador, herself at the rank of minister as a member of Joe Biden’s cabinet, told reporters. “Our objective is to convey the gravity of the situation” because “this is a crucial moment”, she underlined. Antony Blinken will “signal our intense commitment to diplomacy, offer and underline the path to de-escalation”, she also said.
The “most dangerous moment for peace”
Americans watched with concern on Wednesday as Russia continues to escalate while claiming it has begun a de-escalation, a senior State Department official told reporters, citing a similarity to the phase that preceded the Moscow incursion in Georgia in 2008.
He also explained the American concern by the recent bombings in Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine the scene of a conflict between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists, as well as by preparations attributed by Washington to the Russians to manufacture all plays a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine. This is “perhaps the most dangerous moment for peace and security since the end of the Cold War”, said this senior American official.
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