WASHINGTON, December 11. /TASS/. The US government continues to aspire for diplomatic interaction in the context of the situation between Russia and Ukraine, White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki said on Friday.
During a regular briefing one of the journalists asked her whether it would be fair to say in the context of a recent Russian-US summit that "the ball is now in President Putin’s court" in terms of the further movements of Russian troops allegedly accumulated near the border with Ukraine. "Our objective continues to be diplomatic discussions. <...> Those could take a range of formats. There's decades of precedent on this and a lot of formats that exist where those could continue. <...> And that is really our objective and our focus," the spokeswoman replied.
"Those would not, of course, involve just the Russians. Our overarching approach here is that we're not going to have conversations without the key players involved, whether that is conversations about Ukraine without Ukraine or conversations about NATO without NATO. Those are our principles. <...> Obviously, all of this effort — diplomatic effort to date, coordination with our European partners, the President’s very direct conversation with President Putin — was meant to convey very clearly that if he were to choose to invade, there would be severe and significant economic consequences. Obviously, you know, he is the one who has control over the military troops of Russia, not other countries. But, certainly, our effort and our focus is to have those diplomatic discussions and have the ball move forward through that channel," she continued.
On December 7, Putin and Biden held talks in a videoconference format lasting two hours. The situation around Ukraine was the prevailing subject. The leaders also discussed bilateral relations, cybersecurity and the Iranian nuclear deal.
Lately, in the West and Ukraine, the claims of an alleged possible Russian "invasion" on Ukrainian territory are being made increasingly more often. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded such information as an empty and groundless inflation of tension, emphasizing that Russia does not represent a threat to anyone. At the same time, he didn’t exclude the possibility of provocations in order to justify such claims and warned that the attempts to resolve the problem in southeastern Ukraine by force would have the most serious consequences. The Kremlin official also assured that Moscow was doing everything to help Kiev settle the Donbass conflict while adhering to the Normandy format and the Minsk Accords. Additionally, earlier he stressed that the movements of the Russian army on Russian territory should not alarm anyone abroad since Russia did not represent a threat to anyone, including Ukraine.