“I will send American troops to Eastern Europe and NATO countries soon, not a lot”, announced Friday 28 the American president, Joe Biden, without giving more details. While the United States has already placed 8,500 soldiers on alert to strengthen NATO, Joe Biden is thus seeking to maintain pressure on Moscow, at the end of a day of all-out exchanges which left a way open for a diplomatic settlement of tensions around Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thus called on Westerners on Friday not to sow ” panic “ around the risk of a Russian invasion of his country, while Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron agreed on the “need for de-escalation”.
→ ANALYSIS Ukraine: Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin agree on the “need for de-escalation”
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin estimated that with more than 100,000 Russian troops deployed on Ukraine’s borders, Russia had amassed sufficient forces for an invasion, while stressing that a conflict between Ukraine and Russia was not “not inevitable”.
In London, Boris Johnson said to himself “determined to accelerate diplomatic efforts and strengthen deterrence to avoid bloodshed in Europe”, according to a Downing Street spokeswoman on Friday evening. The British Prime Minister is to meet in the coming days with Vladimir Putin, before traveling to the region.
“Climate conducive to dialogue”
“The probability of the attack exists, it has not disappeared and it has not been less serious in 2021”, most “we don’t see any escalation higher than the one that existed” last year, declared the Ukrainian president at a press conference in Kiev, while calling on Russia to “take steps to prove” that she is not going to act.
During a conversation with the French President on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky called for “multiply meetings and negotiations (…) while a climate conducive to dialogue exists” : “As long as diplomatic efforts continue, the likelihood of an escalation decreases. »
Russia denies any plan of invasion, but considers itself threatened by the expansion of NATO for 20 years and by Western support for Ukraine. It therefore linked the de-escalation to the end of the policy of enlargement of the Atlantic Alliance, in particular to Ukraine, and to the return of Western military deployments to the 1997 borders. The United States and NATO had formally rejected Wednesday these requests.
The Europeans and the Americans have promised fierce and unprecedented sanctions in the event of an attack on Ukraine. Were mentioned the strategic gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 between Russia and Germany, or even the access of Russians to transactions in dollars, the queen currency in international trade.
→ ANALYSIS Russian gas: the puzzle of alternatives