“You know we had a Security Council meeting today and Secretary Blinken openly asked our Russian counterpart, ‘Tell us here, Security Council, you don’t intend to attack,’ and they didn’t. So Their intentions are very clear,” UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “Outfront.” “When they do, that’s their decision. But we need to be prepared when it happens.”
Moscow, Blinken said, was likely to try to create an excuse for war, which could be a fabricated terrorist bombing inside Russia, a search for a mass grave or a staged drone strike.
Russia has repeatedly rejected the notion that it is preparing to attack Ukraine as an “unfounded allegation”.
“They put these soldiers on the border. We’ve seen them do it when they invaded Crimea. We’ve seen them do it when they invaded other parts of Eastern Europe,” she told Burnett.
Comments from the UN ambassador and other top US officials – including President Joe Biden, who on Thursday gave a blunt warning that he believed an attack would happen “within the next several days” – drew urgency from Biden. Marks an even greater feeling of. Administration that Russia’s actions indicated that the Kremlin was proceeding with war plans.
Thomas-Greenfield stressed Thursday that the US “will continue to lean aggressively on diplomacy and hopefully succeed with a diplomatic solution.” If the Russian offensive doesn’t happen, she said, it will be because of diplomatic efforts.
“We hope that we sit down next week with them at the table to discuss the way forward, with their concerns at the table, with our concerns at the table, and a way forward that doesn’t conflict,” she said. .
,
- Kemp and Perdue clash over 2020 election results in Georgia
- McCarthy’s latest introduction to Trump paints America
- Blinken and Austin travel to Kyiv to meet Zelensky
- Democrats see slipping economic opportunity to expand
- Utah Democrats back independent Ivano
- John Kerry is trying to convince the world to commit
- Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Democrats Will Lose
- Rick Santorum Fast Facts | CNN Politics
- Violence against US politicians and diplomats fast facts
- Building a movement around Putin’s jailed Alexei Navalny