The US and Russian foreign ministers will hold talks in Geneva on Friday in a development that a US official said suggested that “perhaps diplomacy is not dead” in the efforts to fend off a new Russian attack on Ukraine.
“We’re now at a stage where Russia at any time could launch an attack on Ukraine,” said the White House spokeswoman, Jen Psaki. “We are willing to listen to their concerns but we will not compromise on core principles. We must remain clear-eyed about the prospects of progress but … will make every effort to reach an agreement.”
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has not said definitely if the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany would be suspended if Russia does attack, and there are reports that the threat of cutting Russia off from the Swift international payments system may have been quietly shelved.“The aim being to really hinder and restrict Russia’s access to the global economy, so all those things – access to capital, access to banking – they remain on the table,” the diplomat said.
The fresh invitation to talks from Nato may be a last-ditch attempt to show Putin that dialogue will give him substantive progress on arms controls that he can sell to a domestic audience, and that by comparison a military intervention represents an incalculable political risk for him. But Nato and Russia appear far apart on the agenda for the talks.
The vastly experienced Lavrov said he would welcome US involvement in the Normandy Format, claiming it was impossible at present to persuade Ukraine to examine the necessary issues, including the legal status ofLavrov defended the right of Russia to move its troops within its borders and demanded the promised written answers from both Nato and the US to Russia’s call for a rewriting of European security architecture including legally binding guarantees that neither Ukraine or Moldova will be...