Antony Blinken Instagram page Blinken discusses Ukraine issue with Russian FM Lavrov
Washington: US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday by phone to discuss acute and shared concerns that Russia may be considering launching further military aggression against Ukraine in the coming days, the US State Department said in a statement on Sunday.
"The Secretary made clear that a diplomatic path to resolving the crisis remained open, but it would require Moscow to deescalate and engage in good-faith discussions," read a statement issued by the US State Department.
He reiterated that should Moscow pursue the path of aggression and further invade Ukraine, it would result in a resolute, massive, and united Transatlantic response.
Amid escalating concerns over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine that has gripped the Western governments, the United States President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a hour-long high-stakes telephone call Saturday.
According to a White House official, the phone call had begun at 11:04 am ET (16:04 GMT) and the one hour and two minutes long telephonic conversation between the two leaders ended at 12:06 pm ET (17:06 GMT).
The discussion between Biden and Putin came hours after the US moved some of its forces out of Ukraine and ordered the evacuation of most of its embassy staff on Saturday as a tense world worried that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could begin within days.
Russia has reportedly stationed more than 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine and has sent the military personnel to exercises in neighboring Belarus amid rising tensions between the two countries.
Moscow, however, denies that it intends to launch an offensive against Ukraine and claims its troops are in the region for military drills.
The border tensions come nearly eight years after Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula and backed a bloody rebellion in the eastern Donbas region, while Moscow has accused the Ukrainian government of failing to implement the Minsk agreement, which sought to end war in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
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