Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that everyone should "keep a cool head" as tensions between Russia, the United States, and Ukraine continue to rise amid Moscow's potential invasion.
Washington and the West have continued to shout at the Russian federal government because it has amassed hundreds of thousands of troops at the border with Ukraine. But while the American government has repeatedly claimed that an invasion was coming any day now, Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, has been more restrained.
"Keep a Cool Head"
The repeated alarms from the American government have been made in an attempt to thwart any surprise attack by Russia. However, the Ukrainian government has continued to calm the situation down at home to prevent its citizens from going into a panic. Officials were also wary of the potential economic damage that the situation could cause.
But one thing that many authorities and experts are wondering is how long can Ukraine keep its cool head amid the urgent threat of war from Russia's aggression. In a statement sent on Feb. 18 to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), U.S. Ambassador Michael Carpenter delivered the most alarming assessment of Moscow's movements yet, as per Politico.
The official noted that Russia's build-up of troops had already reached roughly 169,000 to 190,000 in and around Ukraine, nearly double from 100,000 just a month ago. The number represents military troops along the border and in Belarus and Crimea as well as Russian-allied separatist forces in the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
After a week's worth of diplomatic talks between the West and Russia that wrapped up on Thursday, a senior U.S. official warned that the "drumbeat of war is sounding loud." The negotiations ended without any clear breakthroughs, leaving the possibility of any future diplomacy and de-escalation up in the air.
De-escalating the Situation
According to CNN, following the talks on Thursday, both American and Russian officials were pessimistic about the situation with Ukraine. The meeting was the third session in a series of negotiations where the U.S. and its NATO allies have been trying to urge Russia to de-escalate and take a more diplomatic course.
On Friday, United States President Joe Biden said that he was convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin had already made up his mind about whether or not he was going to invade Ukraine. The Democrat cited the "significant intelligence capacity" of the U.S. government as what tipped him off.
Biden said Putin's decision was a "catastrophic and needless war of choice" but continued to emphasize that it was still possible to have a diplomatic solution to the problem. Before his address, the U.S. president said he made two "vital" calls.
The first one was to a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. Congress and Vice President Kamala Harris who all attended the Munich Security Conference. The second, on the other hand, was made to officials of the European Union and NATO members' head of state, DW News reported.
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