Top US diplomat Antony Blinken said that upcoming talks with Russia will not succeed so long as there is a "gun to Ukraine's head" as Western leaders stepped up warnings of major consequences for an invasion.
"Let’s be very, very clear about this: NATO did not invade Ukraine; NATO did not invade Georgia; NATO did not position forces in Moldova against the will of its people. Those are all things, among many others, that Russia has done in recent years, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
„Over the past two decades, it is Russia that has invaded neighboring countries; interfered in other countries’ elections; used chemical weapons to attempt to assassinate opponents of the government, and done so on foreign soil; violated international arms control agreements; pulled back from confidence-building and transparency measures long agreed. And so we and our allies will absolutely be raising these and other issues with Russia in the days and weeks ahead."
"Russia has committed repeated acts of aggression against its neighbors going back more than a decade – Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in 2014, and now the prospect of doing that again. And at the same time, this is bigger even than Ukraine. This goes to some basic principles of international relations that are what guarantee peace and security: the principle that one nation can’t simply change the borders of another by force; the principle that one nation can’t dictate to another its choices and with whom it will associate; the principle that we can’t have countries exerting spheres of influence to subjugate their neighbors. That should be a relic of the past. All of that is what is in play here. That’s why it’s so important that we stand not only for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, its sovereignty, and its independence but for these basic principles." - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
