Some quotes, via my colleague Fran Lawther, from the press conference that’s followed the meeting between the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Scholz said he and Zelenskiy had spoken about sanctions and the importance of preventative measures, adding:
There are no good reasons for the activities on the Ukrainian border. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is not negotiable. We expect Russia to take clear steps to resolve the situation.
Zelenskiy, meanwhile, has said:
Ukraine’s security is the security of all of Europe
Russian oligarchs would be targeted with “severe” sanctions if Russia invaded Ukraine, the Uk foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said. (Via PA)
Truss said she still hoped for a diplomatic solution, telling reporters:
That is why the prime minister and I are travelling around Europe this week, that is why we are working to persuade the Russians to remove their troops from the border, because a war would be disastrous.
But she added:
We are very clear that Russia is the aggressor in this situation. They have 100,000 troops lined up on the Ukrainian borders. They need to de-escalate because it will be a cost to Russia if they invade Ukraine, both in terms of the cost of a long-running war, but also the sanctions that we would impose, which would be severe, and would target oligarchs and it would target companies across Russia.
AFP has this on Zelenskiy telling Scholz that Russia is wielding its Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as a “geopolitical weapon”.
The controversial energy link bypassing Ukraine has been a growing irritant in Germany’s relations with Washington and Kyiv.
“We have certain disagreements in our assessments” of the Russia-Germany energy link, Zelenskiy said, after talks with Scholz in Kyiv.
“We clearly understand that it is a geopolitical weapon.”
Russia has completed the building the pipeline, which runs under the Baltic Sea, but German regulators are yet to approve its use.
US president Joe Biden has warned that he would find a way to “bring an end” to the project should Russia invade Ukraine.
Without mentioning Nord Stream 2 by name, Scholz said that “no one should doubt the determination and preparedness” of Berlin to punish Russia in case it attacks its neighbour.
“We will act then and they will be very far-reaching measures that will have a significant impact on Russia’s economic development opportunities,” Scholz said.
Vladimir Putin could launch an invasion of Ukraine “almost immediately”, the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has warned.
She repeated a call for Britons to leave Ukraine because of the threat of war, after chairing a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee.
Truss said:
We are fully aware that there could be a Russian invasion almost immediately. That is why British citizens do need to leave Ukraine but we are also pursuing the path of diplomacy and de-escalation.
(Via PA Media)
Russia’s foreign minister advises Putin to continue talking to west – video
Russia’s foreign minister advises Putin to continue talking to west – video
During a televised exchange, Sergei Lavrov suggests to Vladimir Putin that Moscow continue along the diplomatic path, saying possibilities for talks on Ukraine had not been exhausted. ‘They shouldn’t continue endlessly, but at this stage, I would propose to continue and increase them,’ says the foreign minister.
More here from Zelenskiy on Ukraine’s pursuit of Nato membership (via Reuters). He says his country won’t be told how to act because of the possible reaction in Moscow:
Today, many journalists and many leaders are hinting a little to Ukraine that it is possible not to take risks, not to constantly raise the issue of future membership in the alliance, because these risks are associated with the reaction of the Russian Federation. I believe that we should move along the path we have chosen.
According to Reuters, Zelenskiy has also just questioned the patriotism of “entities that have moved their offices to Warsaw or Lviv in western Ukraine.
The German chancellor has said these are “very serious times”, but that Germany stands closely by Ukraine’s side and is impressed with the country’s democratic movement.
Scholz says “no other country has supported Ukraine as much financially as Germany”, and has just announced that €150m will be paid out to Ukraine with immediate effect, with a new credit of another €150m.
He says Germany has been training Ukrainian soldiers and treating injured civilians, and that “the sovereignty and territorial independence of Ukraine are non-negotiable”.
Scholz has promised to emphasise the consequences of an invasion when he is in Moscow tomorrow:
If Russia again violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine, we will know what to do … There’s one central challenge: to de-escalate the situation and for troops to draw back.
Scholz says he expects clear steps towards de-escalation from Russia, adding that he will tell Putin that any invasion would have heavy economic consequences.
He also says a sanctions package is being worked on, and that the necessary decision on imposing them could be made at any moment. Scholz says there is no reasonable justification for Russian military activity on the Ukrainian border, and that Germany expects Russia to use the offer of security dialogue.
The German chancellor is also reacting to the Nato talk, saying that Ukrainian accession discussions are not on the agenda at the moment, so it is strange that Russia would raise the issue.
Quite a few people, including my colleague Peter Beaumont, are a little puzzled by the armed forces minister James Heappey’s assertion that Europe is now closer to war than it has been for 70 years. (See here.)
Peter writes:
The comments by James Heappey, the UK’s armed forces minister, to the BBC that Europe is closer to war than it has been for 70 years will be baffling to a number of countries that have seen full-blown conflicts in the past seven decades, or experienced Soviet aggression.
Among the wars that have occurred since the second world war are the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s, including the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, and the conflict in Cyprus – which saw a Turkish invasion in 1974 following a Greek Cypriot coup.
The large-scale interventions by Soviet forces in Hungary in 1956 and by Warsaw Pact forces in Czechoslovakia in 1968 both provoked large numbers of people to flee their respective countries.
Perhaps most puzzling of all is that Heapey seems to be discounting the war that has been ongoing in Ukraine for the past eight years.
Reuters has a little more from the press conference. Zelenskiy has reacted to suggestions from Moscow and elsewhere that the temperature could be lowered if Ukraine dropped or postponed its joining of Nato:
Ukraine’s Zelenskiy says some leaders hint that Ukraine shouldn’t talk so much about joining Nato but this decision is our decision.
Some quotes, via my colleague Fran Lawther, from the press conference that’s followed the meeting between the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Scholz said he and Zelenskiy had spoken about sanctions and the importance of preventative measures, adding:
There are no good reasons for the activities on the Ukrainian border. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is not negotiable. We expect Russia to take clear steps to resolve the situation.
Zelenskiy, meanwhile, has said:
Ukraine’s security is the security of all of Europe
A bit more here from the World at One’s interview with Vyacheslav Nikonov. He’s just warned that if Russia doesn’t receive a “positive response” to its security concerns, there will be “some technical response”, which will put the west “in the same position of danger”.
He said:
Russia is still waiting for a positive response to its security concerns. But still waiting … we will not wait forever. There will be some technical response, which will put the West in the same position of danger.
It’s also clear that the west is not prepared to introduce Ukraine into Nato in the next century, so why not have an agreement on that? As for the tactical nukes in western Europe, what is the point for for those nukes? We do not have our nukes on foreign soil.
Vyacheslav Nikonov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on international affairs, has said there is “nothing special” about Russian military exercises around Ukraine.
Nikonov, grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, who concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany on behalf of the Soviet Union, told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme:
The connections between the two countries are very, very close. Both my grandmothers were born in Ukraine. This is true of almost any family, you know … I have friends and relatives there. That’s true for Ukrainians, for Russians and so on. So, these are the two very interconnected nations. It has got its sovereignty by the decision of the Russian government.
When asked about the large military buildup around Ukraine, Mr Nikonov added:
Well, first of all the information about the amassment of Russian troops on the border we get from the western sources so you must know better … As for Russia, Russian exercises are standard, regular, and there is nothing special about it.
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