WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wants to rely on diplomacy in the Ukraine conflict for as long as possible. “Everything we’re seeing suggests it’s dead serious, we’re on the brink of an invasion,” he warned in an interview with CNN on Sunday morning (local time). However, they want to use “every opportunity and every minute” to prevent Russia’s President Vladimir Putin from invading “until the tanks are actually rolling and the planes are flying,” said Blinken.
A meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov next week in Europe is still planned, “unless Russia invades in the meantime,” emphasized the US minister. Referring to the situation in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, Blinken said: “Everything that leads to the actual invasion seems to be happening: all these false flag operations, all these provocations to create justifications.” This is rehearsed and exactly what the US government warned against.
Blinken also criticized the decision that Russian troops should remain in Belarus for the time being to continue joint military exercises. These are “exercises in quotation marks,” he said. These would be justified by the situation in eastern Ukraine. This is “a situation that they have created by further heating up tensions,” said Blinken, referring to Moscow and Minsk./nau/DP/jha