Consultation without resultUS President Joe Biden urged Americans in Ukraine to leave the country immediately in a TV interview with NBC News. The situation in Ukraine could quickly go crazy, Biden said. The US State Department warns that it will not be able to evacuate civilians in Ukraine if Russia invades the country. Hours of consultations about the crisis in Berlin between delegations from Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine did not yield a solution on Thursday evening.
Biden says in the interview that “we are not dealing here with a terrorist organization, but with one of the largest military forces in the world.” According to him, the US military cannot come to the aid of American citizens if they want to flee Ukraine. “It will be a world war if Americans and Russia start shooting at each other,” the president said.
His comments are in line with the revised travel advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which since Thursday warned that consular assistance in Ukraine would be “hardly hit” if Russia invades the country. This also makes help with evacuation “impossible”, the ministry reports.
Orange travel advice still applies to Dutch people in Ukraine. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls on Dutch people in Ukraine to ask themselves whether their stay is “really necessary”.
Hours of consultation in Berlin without result
The consultations that Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia held in Berlin on Thursday about the conflicts between Moscow and Kiev yielded no results. After nine hours of meetings, Russia and Ukraine said no agreement had been reached by the so-called Normandy Consultative Group, but that talks are likely to continue soon.
Ukraine expects to “come to a desired outcome” as a result of the consultations, but as long as the Russian troops do not withdraw along the Ukrainian border, according to the country, “there is no question of calm”. Dmitri Kozak, who conducts the talks on behalf of the Kremlin, called the Ukrainians’ vision “unclear”. Kozak stressed that no agreement could be reached.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “hopeful” about the talks on Tuesday. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said these talks are the only way to improve relations with Russia.
According to the Kremlin, Western powers are escalating tensions by supplying Ukraine with weapons and planning for Ukraine’s NATO membership. In addition, Russia considers the pro-Western change of power in Kiev in 2014 as a coup d’état mainly concocted by the US against an elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine. The West argues that there was a popular uprising and that the president was overthrown. Shortly after his departure, civil war broke out in the east of the country and Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
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