U.S. and NATO officials ramp up warnings of potential Russian aggression in Ukraine
LA TimesU.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken confers with U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned Thursday that Russia “is preparing to launch an attack” against Ukraine, echoing earlier comments from U.S. and Western officials who said that an invasion could come any day and that Moscow would seek to use disinformation to create a pretext for such an assault. No children were reported injured, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a statement on Twitter calling the attack “a big provocation.” Biden said the U.S. on Thursday had received a letter from the Russian government in response to one Blinken had sent to the Kremlin rebuffing its major demands, including one precluding NATO membership for Ukraine. Blinken has agreed to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov late next week, “provided there is no further Russian invasion of Ukraine,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price. “We have thousands of victims of the internal armed conflict, and many millions in Donbas are still presented as foreigners in their own country.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has hoped his steady buildup of forces on Ukraine’s borders — now surpassing 150,000 troops — would compel the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to give him a guarantee that Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, would never be granted NATO membership.