Ukraine calls for peaceful solution to Russian military buildup as Russia, U.S. spar at U.N. meeting

WASHINGTON – Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations stated on Monday that Kyiv nonetheless hopes for a diplomatic decision with Russia even as Moscow sends extra troops and weapons to its border.

“If Russia has any questions to Ukraine, it’s higher to meet and discuss, not to deliver troops to the Ukrainian borders and intimidate Ukrainian individuals,” stated Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya at a United Nations Security Council meeting.

The Ukrainian diplomat just isn’t a member of the council however was invited to take part as the disaster escalates at his nation’s border. He pushed again on Russian claims that Kyiv was ready to mount an assault.

“Ukraine just isn’t going to launch a military offensive, neither in Donbass, nor Crimea nor anyplace else,” Kyslytsya stated.

“The Kremlin should do not forget that Ukraine is prepared to defend itself, at the identical time we help the necessity to hold diplomatic channels with Russia open,” he added.

His remarks come as an estimated 100,000 troops outfitted with superior weaponry line Ukraine’s jap border with Russia and northern border with Belarus, a Moscow ally.

“It is within the curiosity of everybody to forestall the battle or relatively to forestall the renewal of an energetic part of the military ongoing aggression,” Kyslytsya advised reporters at the United Nations following the two-hour meeting.

“Everyone will endure, even if you’re far-off from Ukraine,” he stated, referencing doable international financial repercussions from battle.

The ambassadors from the U.S. and Russia clashed at the worldwide discussion board, which didn’t yield any motion or a joint assertion from individuals.

Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya blamed the United States for “upsetting escalation” at the border and for falsely accusing Moscow of getting ready to invade Ukraine.

“You’re ready for it to occur, as if you’d like your phrases to turn out to be a actuality,” Nebenzya stated in remarks directed towards U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Nebenzya known as the U.S. “significantly hypocritical” for convening the U.N. Security Council.

“It’s the Americans who maintain the document for having troop presences outdoors their territory,” he stated. “The military adventures of the U.S. have killed a whole bunch of hundreds of civilians in international locations the place they had been supposed to be bringing peace and democracy,” he added.

Thomas-Greenfield defended her resolution to request the meeting on behalf of the United States.

“You’ve heard from our Russian colleagues that we’re calling for this meeting to make you uncomfortable. Imagine how uncomfortable you’d be in the event you had 100,000 troops sitting in your border in the best way that these troops are sitting on the border with Ukraine,” she stated.

“You hear me clearly, that is the most important mobilization of troops in Europe in many years. And as we converse, Russia is sending much more forces and arms to be part of them,” she stated, including, “What wouldn’t it imply for the world if former empires had license to begin reclaiming territory by drive? This would set us down a harmful path.”

“Russia might in fact, select a distinct path. The path of diplomacy,” Thomas-Greenfield continued.

At the White House, President Joe Biden told reporters that he had a productive discussion with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy final week.

Biden reiterated that the U.S. stays “prepared it doesn’t matter what occurs” ought to Russia pursue aggression in lieu of diplomacy.

Last week, the Pentagon’s high officers warned that the aftermath of a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be “horrific.”

“Given the kind of forces which might be arrayed, the bottom maneuver forces, the artillery, the ballistic missiles, the air forces, all of it packaged collectively. If that was unleashed on Ukraine, it will be important, very important, and it will end in a major quantity of casualties,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley advised reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.

“It could be horrific,” added Milley.

Milley, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, stated that Russia’s posture alongside Ukraine’s border was not like something he has seen throughout his four-decade military profession.

He stated the Russians have deployed air forces, naval forces, particular forces, cyber digital warfare, command and management, logistics engineers and different capabilities alongside Ukraine’s border.

The Kremlin has denied that the troop deployment is a prelude to an assault and has as an alternative characterised the motion as a military train.

Russian officers have repeatedly known as on the U.S. to forestall an eastward enlargement of the NATO military alliance.

Russia has also demanded that the U.S. “shall not set up military bases” within the territories of any former Soviet states that aren’t already members of NATO, or “use their infrastructure for any military actions or develop bilateral military cooperation with them.”

The U.S. and NATO have beforehand stated that such a request from the Kremlin can’t be accommodated.