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Prospects dim as US, Russia start tense talks over Ukraine crisis
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said over the weekend it was entirely possible the diplomacy could end after a single meeting, and even US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played down expectations for the high-stakes talks.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (right) in Stockholm, on December 2, 2021. The US Secretary of State hold talks with his Russian counterpart on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
(AFP/Jonathan NACKSTRAND)
W
ith diplomats publicly pessimistic, the United States and Russia are set to begin fragile negotiations in Geneva on Monday that Washington hopes can avert the danger of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine without conceding to the Kremlin's expansive security demands.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said over the weekend it was entirely possible the diplomacy could end after a single meeting, and even US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played down expectations for the high-stakes talks.
"I don't think we're going to see any breakthroughs in the coming week," Blinken said in a CNN interview on Sunday.
Talks begin on Monday in Geneva before moving to Brussels and Vienna, with US-Russia relations at their most tense since the Cold War ended three decades ago.
Nearly 100,000 Russian troops are gathered within reach of the border with Ukraine in preparation for what Washington and Kyiv say could be an invasion, eight years after Russia seized the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine.
Russia denies invasion plans and said it is responding to what it calls aggressive and provocative behavior from the NATO military alliance and Ukraine, which has tilted toward the West and aspires to join NATO.
Last month, Russia presented a sweeping set of demands that include a ban on further NATO expansion and an end to the alliance's activity in central and eastern European countries that joined it after 1997.
