US President Joe Biden has warned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin , that the United States will "respond strongly" to a potential invasion of Ukraine. Putin, for his part, was "satisfied" with the telephone conversation that both leaders had this Thursday to make the diplomatic channel prevail in the face of the crisis generated by the threat of a conflict in the European country. However, the Russian president maintained that sanctioning Moscow over Ukraine would be a "colossal mistake" that could lead to a "complete break" in their relations. The talk sought to pave the way for a formal negotiation scheduled for January.
The threat of a "firm response"
The conversation between the two leaders lasted about 50 minutes. Biden is in Wilmington, Delaware, where he has a house and spends the holidays. During the call, the US president "made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond strongly if Russia invades Ukraine ," press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement, adding that a "de-escalation" is needed to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis .
Washington posted a photo of Biden , phone in hand, in a wood-paneled office. During the conversation with Putin, the Democratic president insisted that he remains "deeply concerned" about the presence of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine .
Biden in turn backed diplomatic efforts , "starting early next year with the Bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue, at NATO through the NATO-Russia Council, and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe," he added. Psaki. "The president reiterated that substantial progress in these dialogues can only occur in an environment of de-escalation," the statement completes.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1476676166098595840"The most serious consequences"
The discussion was "frank" and "concrete" , the Kremlin's diplomatic adviser, Yuri Ushakov , said at the end of the meeting. During the call, according to Ushakov, Biden warned of the imposition of heavy sanctions against Moscow if the escalation in Ukraine continued.
Putin warned that these measures could lead to a "complete rupture" of ties between Russia and the West , Ushakov said at a press conference. " This would be a colossal mistake that could lead to serious consequences, the most serious . We hope it does not happen," added the adviser, stressing that future generations of Russians and Americans would pay for it.
Ushakov said that Putin was "satisfied" with the call, but that he warned Biden of the need for a positive outcome for Moscow in the upcoming security talks, which could not last indefinitely. " We need a result , and we will continue to insist on a result in a way that guarantees security for Russia," the Kremlin official told a news conference.
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In his year-end message to the US president hours before the phone call, Putin said he was "convinced" that an "effective" dialogue "based on mutual respect" was possible , and recalled the summit between the two leaders in June in Geneva. "Only the path of negotiations can resolve the number of immediate problems between us," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov added later.
Russia , as the US-Russian negotiations on January 10 in Geneva draw closer, repeats over and over again that its priority is to negotiate treaties that will redefine the balance and architecture of security in Europe . For the Kremlin, Russia's security involves prohibiting NATO from expanding and ending Western military activities in what Moscow considers its zone of influence.
According to Russia, its demands only seek to avoid aggravation of tensions, since Moscow considers the support of the United States, NATO and the European Union to Ukraine, whose government is pro-Western, to be a direct threat to its interests. The United States, accused of directing some international issues without much consultation with its allies, insists on closely coordinating with the Europeans and the Ukrainians.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Wednesday with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his counterparts from France, Germany and the UK. Zelensky claimed to have received assurances of "full American support" in "fighting a Russian attack" .
No concessions from both sides
In the telephone interview in early December, Biden had threatened Putin with sanctions "the likes of which he had never seen" if he decided to attack Ukraine. Western countries have so far ruled out a military response to a possible Russian invasion, and the Kremlin has paid little heed to threats of sanctions.
Russia and its ruling elite are already the target of numerous economic reprisals from Western countries over the Ukrainian issue and the repression in the country, but none of these measures have changed the Kremlin's attitude, rather the opposite.
Moscow denies it is threatening Ukraine, although it annexed its Crimean peninsula in 2014 , and says it is acting in response to Western hostility backing Kiev, especially in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists in the country's east. The latter, although the Russian leaders deny it, are suspected of being under the orders of the Kremlin.
For now, the negotiations on January 10 in Geneva on Ukraine and strategic stability appear tense. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ruled out any "concessions" out of hand, and the United States had already warned that some Russian requests were "unacceptable."
"Negotiations should not become talk for talk ," diplomat Ushakov said Thursday, although he did not detail the time frame that the Kremlin is considering on this issue. Russia has denied that it is preparing for an offensive and has said that the West pays too much attention to the movement of troops within Russia's borders.
The CNN chain revealed this Thursday that, before the telephone dialogue, a US Air Force plane, an E-8 JSTARS (Joint Surveillance and Attack Radar System), flew over eastern Ukraine to collect intelligence information on the situation military in the area.