Envoy warns of Russian intention

NATO ready to sanction if Ukraine invaded, Blinken says

RIGA, Latvia — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Wednesday that President Vladimir Putin could quickly order an invasion of Ukraine if he had a pretext for doing so but that NATO allies stand ready to inflict heavy sanctions on Russia’s economy if that happens.

Tensions over a Russian troop buildup along the border of Ukraine have been a focus of Blinken’s week-long Europe trip and topped the agenda of his meeting Wednesday with NATO counterparts in Latvia. The Ukrainian government is seeking to align with NATO and the West.

“We don’t know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so on short order should he so decide,” Blinken told reporters in Riga, Latvia’s capital. “We must prepare for all contingencies.”

“We’re also urging Ukraine to continue to exercise restraint because, again, the Russian playbook is to claim provocation for something that they were planning to do all along,” he said.

Blinken said the U.S. has “made it clear to the Kremlin that we will respond resolutely, including with a range of high-impact economic measures that we’ve refrained from using in the past.” He gave no details on what kind of “high-impact” sanctions were under consideration if Russia did invade Ukraine.

The European Union’s Parliament approved a nonbinding resolution in April to cut off Russia from the so-called SWIFT system of international payments if its troops entered Ukraine.

Such a move would go far toward blocking Russian businesses from the global financial system. Western allies reportedly considered such a step in 2014 and 2015, during earlier Russian-led escalations of tensions over Ukraine. Then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the time the Russian response to that financially crippling move would be “without limits.”

Putin said Wednesday that Moscow would seek Western guarantees precluding any further NATO expansion and deployment of its weapons near his country’s borders, a stern demand that comes amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“In a dialogue with the United States and its allies, we will insist on working out specific agreements that would exclude any further NATO moves eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory,” Putin said.

He charged that “the threats are mounting on our western border,” with NATO placing its military infrastructure closer to Russia and offered the West to engage in substantive talks on the issue, adding that Moscow would need not just verbal assurances, but “legal guarantees.”

Putin’s statement came a day after he sternly warned NATO against deploying its troops and weapons to Ukraine, saying it represented a red line for Russia and would trigger a strong response.

Apart from targeting Russia for sanctions, Blinken said that “NATO is prepared to reinforce its defenses on the eastern flank.” He did not elaborate. The military organization already has forces stationed in the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — and Poland.

Blinken is scheduled to meet today in Sweden with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He said he would encourage Russia’s top diplomat to return to talks under the “Normandy” format, with France and Germany.

“There is a diplomatic path forward. We are certainly not looking for conflict,” Blinken said.

A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped end large-scale battles in eastern Ukraine sparked after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula the previous year. But efforts to reach a political settlement failed and sporadic skirmishes continue along the tense line of contact.

While in Stockholm today, Blinken also plans to hold talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the sidelines of a minister-level meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In Wednesday’s address to parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for negotiations with Russia to end the conflict in the east.

“We must tell the truth — we wouldn’t be able to stop the war without direct talks with Russia,” Zelenskyy said. “We aren’t afraid of a direct dialogue.”

The Kremlin responded to Zelenskyy’s remarks by reaffirming its long-held stance that Russia isn’t a party to the conflict, describing the fighting in the east as a civil war.

“The war in Donbas is Ukraine’s internal business,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “We know about the attempts to cast Russia as a party to the conflict, but it’s not so. It’s only possible to end the war in Donbas through talks between Ukrainians.”

Peskov said the Ukrainian troop concentration in Donbas could herald an attempt by Kyiv to reclaim control of the rebel-held territory.

“It makes us worry that inclinations to solve the Donbas problem by force could prevail,” he said. “It’s a very dangerous adventurism.”