As talks in Berlin fail, Biden warns US citizens in Ukraine
US president urges all Americans to leave Ukraine, fearing an alleged and hypothetical Russian invasion, while the British defense secretary heads to Moscow.
US President Joe Biden warned that "things may go wild rapidly" in Ukraine, advising American people to “evacuate immediately.”
“American citizens should leave, should leave now,” Biden said in an interview with NBC News. “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. This is a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”
After a tense conversation with her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, British foreign secretary Liz Truss will be joined by defense secretary Ben Wallace in Moscow on Friday. The meeting, according to Lavrov, was akin to a talk between "the mute and the deaf."
Failed Berlin talks
Ukraine's foreign ministry accused Moscow on Thursday of demonstrating a "blatant disregard for the rules and principles of international law" by planning missile tests in the Black Sea, which Kiev claims will make shipping traffic in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov impossible.
It is noteworthy that on January 22, Russia carried out exercises to repel an attack by a hypothetical enemy sabotage group on a sensitive facility of the military corps of the Baltic Fleet.
These exercises are part of a series of military exercises carried out by various Russian Armed Forces units in different military regions, especially in the west of the country, in parallel with the continuing tension in relations between Russia and NATO, mainly on the borders with Ukraine and Belarus.
On Thursday night in Berlin, Russia and Ukraine said that a day of linked negotiations with French and German officials failed to reach a breakthrough.
The main issue at hand was the incapability to "overcome" Russia and Ukraine's diverging interpretations of the 2015 Minsk agreement, according to Russian envoy Dmitry Kozak.
Andriy Yermak, his Ukrainian counterpart, said the two sides had agreed to continue talks. “I hope that we will meet again very soon and continue these negotiations. Everyone is determined to achieve a result,” he stated.
Biden stressed that under no circumstances would he send US troops to Ukraine, even to rescue Americans in case of an alleged Russian invasion. “That’s a world war. When Americans and Russians start shooting one another, we’re in a very different world,” he said.
However, the United States already has 8,500 soldiers on heightened alert within the continent, but none of the new forces have been authorized to enter Ukraine, and all of the deployments are reportedly "temporary."
It is worth noting that while the US discusses conflict resolution in Ukraine, it sent lethal weapons to Ukraine.