The White House said late Sunday that President Joe Biden has agreed to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days under the condition that Russia refrains from launching an invasion of Ukraine.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday. Biden "agreed in principle" a meeting with Putin after that engagement, again, providing an invasion hasn't occurred.
US Hopes To Prevent Ukraine Invasion
To avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the White House and its allies have explored numerous diplomatic off-ramps, with the probable Biden-Putin summit being the most recent example. Nonetheless, both Biden and Vice President Harris have recently stated that they believe Putin has chosen to go forward with an invasion, The Hill reported.
Biden met with his national security council earlier Sunday and spoke on the phone with French President Emmanuel Macron, who had spoken to Putin the same day to press for a diplomatic solution to avert a European conflict. According to US estimates, Russia is believed to have assembled between 160,000 and 190,000 troops on Ukraine's borders, and authorities have warned for weeks that an invasion might happen at any time.
Should Russia go forward with an invasion, Biden and other White House officials have pledged harsh consequences. The administration has warned of Moscow's attempts to construct a pretext to justify deploying soldiers into Ukraine. Officials from the United States and Ukraine have previously rebuffed Moscow's accusations that Ukraine is nearing war. They have blamed Russian-backed separatists for the shelling of a Ukrainian kindergarten classroom on Friday.
According to Sky News, Russia welshed on a previous promise to withdraw tens of thousands of troops from Ukraine's northern border, prompting US officials to declare that this action takes Moscow one step closer to an invasion.
US Announces Russia's Intention to Kill, Detain Ukrainians
Military maneuvers involving an estimated 30,000 Russian soldiers in Belarus were supposed to finish on Sunday, but they have already been prolonged. The personnel's continuing deployment has aroused fears that they may be deployed to sweep down on Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, which is only a three-hour drive away.
It comes as the US announced that it had acquired solid intelligence that Russia intends to kill and detain Ukrainians during an invasion and that it already has a list of targets. According to a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Russian dissidents in exile, as well as journalists, anti-corruption campaigners, religious and ethnic minorities, and the LGBT community, would be susceptible.
The White House is claimed to believe that Moscow is planning a "full-scale assault" very soon, based on this intelligence. The Kremlin, on the other hand, has called these allegations "absolutely false."
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was set to speak with his French colleague Jean-Yves Le Drian by phone later Monday, ahead of scheduled discussions with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday.
For weeks, tensions between Moscow and Western capitals have been rising amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine and a huge build-up of Russian soldiers near Ukraine's borders, as per Mint.
Last week, leaders of separatist-controlled districts in eastern Ukraine advised citizens to flee to Russia, citing an increase in hostilities with Ukraine's army on the front lines. Fresh combat between rebels and the Ukrainian military, Peskov told reporters, has made the situation on the ground "very serious."
