© Keystone/AP/Evan Vucci
US President Joe Biden assured his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that the United States and its allies “will respond vigorously” if Russia invades Ukraine, the White House said. The two heads of state called each other on Sunday.
“President Biden has made it clear that the United States and its allies will respond vigorously if Russia further invades Ukraine,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. She also said that Mr. Biden had shown his support for diplomatic efforts, including the Russian-American talks scheduled for January 9 and 10 in Geneva.
These talks will be led by US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and her Russian counterpart Sergei Riabkov. They will be followed on January 12 by a Russia-NATO meeting, then on January 13 by a meeting within the framework of the OSCE.
Joe Biden multiplies the warnings to Vladimir Poutine and pleads for a “de-escalation”. Last Friday, he had already assured to have again warned the Russian president against an attempted invasion of Ukraine during a telephone interview the day before.
“I clearly said to President Putin that we would adopt severe sanctions and that we would increase our presence in Europe, among our NATO allies,” he declared.
“Unwavering support”
This Sunday, the American leader also “expressed his support for confidence-building measures to defuse tensions in the Donbass and for active diplomacy to advance the implementation of the Minsk agreements”, according to Jen Psaki. Under these agreements, concluded under the aegis of France and Germany, Ukraine has agreed to carry out political reforms and Russia to end its support for pro-Russian separatist rebels.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday on Twitter that his country appreciated “the unwavering support” of the United States in the context of tensions with Russia. “We spoke of the joint actions of Ukraine, the United States and its partners to maintain peace in Europe and avoid a worsening of the situation,” he added.
Washington and its European allies accuse Moscow of threatening Ukraine with a new invasion, following that of Crimea in 2014, and of fomenting a pro-Russian separatist war that erupted that same year in the east. Some 100,000 Russian soldiers are massed near the country’s border.