As Kyiv grumbled that Washington’s decision to withdraw diplomatic families was “premature,” top US diplomat Antony Blinken and European ministers were planning a robust response to any Russian assault into Ukraine on Monday.
Tensions are high as a result of Russia’s deployment of 100,000 troops on its neighbor’s borders, and the United Kingdom has followed the United States’ lead and sent some staff and their families home from its embassy in Kyiv. Moscow maintains that it has no plans to invade.
The US is trying to marshal its allies to prepare an unprecedented package of sanctions for Moscow if its sends in its forces — and European Union members insist they could hit the Kremlin with “massive consequences” in days if needed.
But there remain divisions over the extent of any punishment for Moscow and how imminent the threat of military action could be.
Blinken will dial in to a meeting of EU counterparts in Brussels to brief them on his talks Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, where the two sides failed to make a major breakthrough but agreed to keep working to ease tensions.
EU foreign ministers will sound out Blinken over a written response Washington has committed to providing to Moscow this week after the Kremlin laid down a series of security demands that would stop Ukraine from joining NATO and roll back Washington’s influence in eastern Europe.
Ahead of the latest week of talks, Washington on Sunday ordered the families of its diplomats to leave Ukraine and authorized the “voluntary” departure of non-essential embassy staff.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry decried the move as “premature” and insisted there had been no “no radical changes” recently in security conditions.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc had no plans to pull people out yet, adding there was no need to “dramatize” the situation while talks with Russia continued.
