Russia says Ukraine talks hit dead end, as US envoy warns of ‘drumbeat of war’
- The White House says it will soon share intelligence suggesting Moscow might be looking to invent a pretext to invade its neighbour
- Poland’s foreign minister also said that Europe was at risk of plunging into conflict, as a third round of East-West negotiations with Moscow yielded no breakthrough
Poland’s foreign minister said on Thursday that Europe was at risk of plunging into war as Russia said it was not yet giving up on diplomacy but that military experts were preparing options in case tensions over Ukraine could not be defused.
In Washington, the White House said the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained high with some 100,000 Russian troops deployed and the United States would make public within 24 hours intelligence suggesting Russia might seek to invent a pretext to justify one.
“The drumbeat of war is sounding loud, and the rhetoric has gotten rather shrill,” Michael Carpenter, US Ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said after talks with Russia in Vienna.
“The threat of military invasion is high,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters. “There are no dates set for any more talks. We have to consult with allies and partners first.”
Russia said dialogue was continuing but was hitting a dead end as it tried to persuade the West to bar Ukraine from joining Nato and roll back decades of alliance expansion in Europe – demands that the United States has called “non-starters”.
