GENEVA, January 9. /TASS/. The statements made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Moscow may organize an incident for using military force against Ukraine are a provocation, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who has arrived for the Russia-US talks on security guarantees, said in an interview with TASS on Sunday.
"The statement itself is a major provocation," he said when commenting on Blinken’s statement that Russia might organize a provocation or an incident and later try to use it for reasoning the use of military force against Ukraine.
Moscow is ready "to continue cooperating with all participants at all platforms that have been created for that. But it is not serious to demand from us that we acknowledge ourselves as a party to the conflict," Ryabkov noted.