Vladimir Putin has fired on the United States for wanting to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine.
In his first major remarks on the crisis in recent weeks, the Russian president accused Washington of wanting to use a confrontation as a pretext to impose more sanctions on Russia.
Speaking after a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Moscow, Putin also said Washington was ignoring Russia’s concerns about NATO’s forces in Europe.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned yesterday that a Russian invasion “would not be a war between Ukraine and Russia – it would be a war in Europe.”
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US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called on Moscow to “withdraw its troops from the border with Ukraine” during a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
“If Russia does not intend to invade Ukraine, this is the time to withdraw Russian troops from the two countries’ borders,” Mr Blinken told his Russian counterpart, according to a senior State Department official.
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the US Secretary of State had acknowledged that there were reasons to discuss Moscow’s concerns through direct talks with Ukraine.
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