MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin mentioned on Tuesday that the USA was making an attempt to tug Russia into an armed battle over Ukraine that his authorities didn’t need and signaled he was ready to interact in additional diplomacy, whilst he insisted that NATO’s presence in Japanese Europe threatened world peace.
Mr. Putin mentioned he hoped that “dialogue will likely be continued” over Russia’s safety calls for, refraining from repeating his earlier risk to take unspecified “military-technical” measures if the West didn’t comply. Addressing the standoff over Ukraine for the primary time since December, Mr. Putin seemed to be making an attempt to dial down tensions barely in a disaster that has ignited fears of a full-fledged Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian president claimed it was the USA that was fanning the flames of warfare, looking for to goad the Kremlin into motion and create a pretext for enacting harsh new sanctions. Officers in Russia — in addition to Ukraine — have accused the Biden administration of exaggerating the specter of a Russian invasion, even because the Kremlin has massed, by Western estimates, greater than 100,000 troops to Ukraine’s south, east and north, precipitating the disaster.
“Their most essential activity is to include Russia’s growth,” Mr. Putin mentioned of the USA, repeating one in all his frequent speaking factors. “Ukraine is simply an instrument of reaching this aim. It may be completed in several methods, reminiscent of pulling us into some armed battle after which forcing their allies in Europe to enact these harsh sanctions in opposition to us.”
Requested about the USA’ written responses to Moscow’s safety calls for, which have been delivered final week, Mr. Putin mentioned that it was clear “that the principal Russian issues turned out to be ignored.’’ The Kremlin, he mentioned, remains to be assessing the responses because it weighs its subsequent transfer.
Mr. Putin’s rigorously calibrated feedback spoke to the excessive tensions of the second — and the pivotal choices the longtime Russian chief faces within the coming weeks. Navy analysts say that sustaining Russia’s present army buildup, which includes items from 1000’s of miles away, will change into more and more costly and logistically difficult.
Sending a few of them again to base earlier than securing a diplomatic victory could possibly be learn as an indication of weak point, whereas launching an assault on Ukraine could be prone to price many lives and have wide-ranging penalties.
In Washington, the White Home press secretary, Jen Psaki, reacted derisively to Mr. Putin’s feedback, evaluating them to “when the fox is screaming from the highest of the henhouse that he’s petrified of the chickens.”
Perceive Russia’s Relationship With the West
The strain between the areas is rising and Russian President Vladimir Putin is more and more keen to take geopolitical dangers and assert his calls for.
“We all know who the fox is on this case,” she mentioned.
Ned Worth, a State Division spokesman, mentioned he would “go away it to the Kremlinologists on the market” to interpret the Russian chief’s phrases.
Mr. Putin’s look, at a joint information convention with Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary after they met for 5 hours, got here as a flurry of diplomacy performed out involving Europe and the USA. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke by telephone together with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, who mentioned afterward that the USA had agreed to “additional dialogue” on Russia’s calls for.
The Kremlin mentioned Mr. Putin additionally held a name on Tuesday with Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, and that an in-person assembly with President Emmanuel Macron of France was deliberate. Mr. Putin will communicate to Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Mr. Johnson flew to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and met with President Volodymyr Zelensky in a present of help, saying there’s “a transparent and current hazard.’’
Mr. Zelensky, who additionally met with the prime minister of Poland on Tuesday, supplied his personal grim appraisal, after weeks of enjoying down American and British assessments of the severity of the Russian risk.
“This isn’t going to be a warfare of Ukraine and Russia,” ought to diplomatic efforts fail, he mentioned. “That is going to be a European warfare, a full-fledged warfare.”
Whereas Mr. Johnson tried to maintain the give attention to Russia, he was immediately placed on the defensive by aggressive questioning a few scandal over illicit events through the pandemic that’s imperiling his maintain on workplace. “On the problem of Ukraine,” one reporter requested, “why ought to the worldwide neighborhood take your diplomacy significantly while you’re so preoccupied?”
Mr. Johnson dodged many of the questions on his troubles at house. However pressed on whether or not he would launch an unredacted report by a senior civil servant investigating the events, Mr. Johnson replied, “After all we’ll publish every little thing as quickly as the method is accomplished.”
For weeks, Russia has been insisting that the present disaster is not only about Ukraine, however a few European safety structure that fails to take Russia’s pursuits under consideration. Final December, as American officers began elevating alarms about what they mentioned was a Russian troop buildup, Moscow issued written calls for for “safety ensures.” They included that NATO, the Western army alliance, not broaden eastward, guaranteeing that Ukraine won’t ever joins it, and that NATO draw down forces in Japanese European international locations previously a part of the Soviet Union or its orbit.
Mr. Putin mentioned these have been existential points that Russia was decided to lastly resolve. However many analysts and Western officers interpreted his stance as an try to create a pretext for doable army motion in opposition to Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that Mr. Putin has wished to reinsert into Russia’s sphere of affect ever since Ukraine’s pro-Western revolution in 2014.
The USA has tried to interact with Mr. Putin on his diplomatic calls for, betting that such negotiations — backed by threats of extreme sanctions ought to they fail — may avert a Russian assault on Ukraine. After conferences with Russian officers final month, the USA and its NATO companions despatched Russia written responses to Mr. Putin’s calls for.
Western officers mentioned they didn’t budge in these responses on their rivalry that each nation should be allowed to decide on its alliances, however mentioned that they did supply talks on different safety issues of curiosity to Russia.
Mr. Putin on Tuesday mentioned Russia was nonetheless “rigorously analyzing” these responses, however that it was clear his most urgent calls for have been being ignored. He described the opportunity of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO as a basic risk not simply to Russia, however to world peace.
Perceive the Escalating Tensions Over Ukraine
He mentioned {that a} Western-allied Ukraine strengthened with NATO weapons may launch a warfare in opposition to Russia to recapture Crimea — which Russia annexed in 2014, a transfer unrecognized by the worldwide neighborhood. That, he mentioned, may result in warfare between Russia and the NATO bloc.
“If we have a look at all these many questions deeply, significantly, then it turns into clear that with a purpose to keep away from such a adverse growth of the state of affairs — and we need to keep away from it — all international locations’ pursuits, together with these of Russia, should be really taken under consideration, and a method of fixing this drawback should be discovered,” Mr. Putin mentioned.
Nonetheless, Mr. Putin mentioned that he would preserve speaking, together with with Mr. Macron, the French president, who might go to Moscow within the close to future.
“I hope that finally we’ll discover this answer although it’s not simple, we perceive that,” Mr. Putin mentioned. “However to speak right this moment about what that will likely be — I’m, in fact, not prepared to do this.”
Even because it faces down the West, the Kremlin stays eager to indicate that Russia has buddies all over the world. A go to to Moscow by President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is being ready, the Kremlin mentioned. On Friday, Mr. Putin will go to Beijing for a summit with President Xi Jinping on the day of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, in what would be the Chinese language chief’s first assembly with a international counterpart because the pandemic.
On the United Nations on Tuesday, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia of Russia instructed reporters that he hoped the Olympics would offer a respite from the heightened tensions, not less than for the primary few days of February. A day earlier, Russia and the USA angrily confronted one another over the Ukraine disaster at a public assembly of the Safety Council, with theatrics and rhetoric paying homage to the Chilly Battle period.
After the joint information convention with Mr. Putin and Mr. Orban, the Kremlin launched footage of the 2 having fun with a socially distanced champagne toast. Mr. Orban is the Russian president’s closest ally among the many leaders of the European Union and NATO.
“We have now some days and weeks to barter,” Mr. Orban instructed Russian state tv, responding to a query about the opportunity of a Russian assault on Ukraine. “I don’t assume that one thing will occur abruptly.”
Anton Troianovski reported from Moscow and Michael Schwirtz from Kyiv. Reporting was contributed Ivan Nechepurenko and Valerie Hopkins from Moscow, Jason Horowitz from Rome, Maria Varenikova from Kyiv, Michael Crowley and David E. Sanger in Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York.