NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated on Sunday that NATO will not send troops to Ukraine if Russia attacks.
“We are focused on providing support,” Stoltenberg said, “there is a difference between being a member of NATO and having a strong and highly valued partner (such as) Ukraine. There is no doubt about it,” he said. Said in an interview to BBC.
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told Sky News that her country would try to ban Vladimir Putin so that his oligarchs had no hiding places.
He said the short-term gains have come at the real cost of long-term threats to democracy and freedom in Britain and other Western allies.
‘Londongrad’ under the microscope
The so-called “Londongrad” has come under renewed attention as the primary destination for politically sensitive Russian merchants and their capital.
Last week, the US warned that Britain’s acknowledgment of Russian “dirty money” threatened the effectiveness of any sanctions regime Washington would seek to deter and potentially punish Russia.
If Moscow follows through on its military build-up on Ukraine’s borders and Crimea and the eastern region known as the Donbass, should it invade and occupy parts of that country, Washington is coordinating with the allies.
Truss said that British troops were “very unlikely” to be involved if fighting for Ukraine did take place.
“It’s about making sure Ukrainian forces have all the support we can give them,” Truss said.
CNN reports UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will speak this week. On Sunday, Johnson said the prospect of Russian military action in Ukraine was “increasingly worrying.”
Russia: Unlike NATO its security concerns are on the defensive
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also reiterated his position that NATO cannot claim to be on the defensive with foreign interventions such as those in Afghanistan, Libya and the former Yugoslavia under its belt.
Russian state-run Tass reported that Lavrov told the “Sunday Time” program on Russia’s Channel One that Russia wanted to defend its interests.
“When the Cold War was going on and the Berlin Wall was in place, it was clear which area to defend,” he said.
He said requests were being sent to NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Russia’s requests are a follow-up to an ultimatum previously issued by Russia against NATO expansion and force currency in NATO member states.
Russia has sent more than 100,000 troops to Ukraine’s borders and the blood supply may be developed as a frontline in recent days.
However, Russia’s national security adviser Nikolai Petrushev said that talk of war with Ukraine was part of the West’s “volunteer construction”.
“We don’t want war, we don’t need it at all,” Patrushev was quoted as saying by Russian state-run Interfax news agency.
What has the US offered to de-escalate tensions?
The US and NATO rejected Russia’s demands, but US ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan has said the US has offered to reduce military exercises and missile numbers in Europe. Lavrov had previously ridiculed the responses of both the US and NATO, but acknowledged that the US proposals offered a “grain of rationality” on secondary issues.
Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia, wrote on Twitter: “For the Russian Foreign Minister (with whom I chatted five years ago back in the day), he gets (complimentary) as much!”
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