At a Bilateral Meeting, Blinken and Lavrov Exchanged Threats and Hopes

The foreign ministers of Russia and the United States held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the OSCE summit, which is being held in the suburbs of Stockholm, writes Le Monde.

They had a tense meeting, during which they exchanged warnings and threats on the Ukrainian issue, but at the same time both assured that they want to resolve this crisis with the help of diplomacy, the author of the article notes.

"We are deeply concerned about Russia's plans for a new aggression against Ukraine," said Anthony Blinken. He also called on Russia to "de-escalate" the situation on the border with Ukraine. "The nightmarish scenario of a military confrontation is returning," Sergei Lavrov said. He accused NATO of approaching Russia's borders, but said Russia was interested in working together to resolve the crisis.

Moscow also said it hoped for soon-to-be contact between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Joe Biden. The author of the article quotes the words of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergei Ryabkov, who noted that this contact is now really necessary, given that the problems are growing.

"There is no mutual understanding on how to de-escalate the situation in Europe," Ryabkov said. "The situation in Europe is very worrying. It is clear that this will be one of the main topics for discussion at the presidential level."

Anthony Blinken, for his part, expressed hope that such a meeting would take place in the near future. As the author of the article notes, despite the intentions for reconciliation demonstrated by Putin and Biden during their historic summit in Geneva, issues of tension are growing more and more. Thus, in addition to Ukraine, in the last few weeks a migration crisis has erupted on the border with Belarus, and clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan have resumed, Le Monde reports.

/Le Monde via Focus

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