Russian President Vladimir Putin gave one of the first signs on Monday that he is considering easing back from a massive military buildup around Ukraine, but the Biden administration remained highly skeptical and continued to warn that an invasion of Ukraine could be imminent.
At a meeting that appeared orchestrated for TV cameras, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Mr. Putin that Moscow would benefit from more talks with the U.S. and its allies, despite what the Kremlin says is their refusal to consider Russian security demands.
In addition to Ukraine, the Kremlin has sought guarantees that NATO won’t allow any other former Soviet countries to become alliance members. It also wants NATO to halt weapons deployments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe. The Western alliance has flatly rejected those demands.
Talks with Washington “can’t go on indefinitely, but I would suggest to continue and expand them at this stage,” Mr. Lavrov told Mr. Putin on Monday. He was reading prepared remarks and noted that the U.S. has offered to conduct dialogue on limits for missile deployments in Europe, restrictions on military drills and other confidence-building measures. Mr. Putin, who hosts German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for yet more crisis talks in Moscow on Tuesday, uttered a brief assent.
The Biden administration showed no letup in its public diplomacy campaign denouncing a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders and all but insisted that Mr. Putin had already decided on war. Some 130,000 troops in Russia and Belarus and a flotilla of Russian warships in the Black Sea have been deployed around Ukraine in recent months, increasing tensions across the region.
“If Foreign Minister Lavrov’s comments are followed up with concrete, tangible signs of deescalation, we would certainly welcome that,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. “We have not seen that yet.”
Russian officials have repeatedly denied that they are planning military operations, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Monday that U.S. Embassy operations in Kyiv would be moved west temporarily to the city of Lviv, about 40 miles from the Polish border, because of a “dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces” around Ukraine. The department last week urged all Americans living and working in the country to leave.
“The Embassy will remain engaged with the Ukrainian government, coordinating diplomatic engagement in Ukraine,” Mr. Blinken said in a statement, adding that U.S. officials are “continuing our intensive diplomatic efforts to deescalate the crisis.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy caused a brief stir by declaring in a Facebook video post that he and others in Kyiv had been informed that Feb. 16 would be when Russia attacks Ukraine. The former comedian has been dismissive of the prospect of a Russian invasion and was apparently being sarcastic. Within hours, he walked back his statement and clarified that he was referring only to media reports, not actual intelligence on Russian plans.
The mixed messaging seemed only to add to regional unease. Germany’s Mr. Scholz visited Kyiv on Monday before his high-stakes summit in Moscow. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss have made the same trip in recent weeks to try to get the Kremlin to stand down.
Mr. Scholz, who has faced criticism in Washington and Berlin for not taking a stronger stand in favor of Ukraine, said Monday that there are “no sensible reasons” for Russia’s buildup of troops. He urged more dialogue.
The German chancellor told reporters in Kyiv that he will “underscore” to Mr. Putin the heavy consequences if Russia invades Ukraine. He said the European Union and the United States are poised to impose “very far-reaching and effective sanctions,” according to the German news agency Deutsche Welle.
The news outlet noted that Mr. Scholz’s visits to Kyiv and Moscow coincide with questions about the true extent of Germany’s support for Ukraine. The chancellor has remained firmly opposed to sending lethal German weapons to Ukraine.
There are also concerns about Germany’s push to complete the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into Germany. Analysts say the pipeline will expand Western European dependence on Russian energy and increase Moscow’s leverage over the region. The pipeline could prove an economic shock to Ukraine by bypassing lucrative pipeline routes through Ukraine and Poland.
Mr. Zelenskyy said after meeting with Mr. Scholz that Ukraine and Germany have a difference of opinion on the Nord Stream issue. Ukrainian officials “understand that it is a geopolitical weapon,” Mr. Zelenskyy said, according to Deutsche Welle.
Lowering the temperature
Russian officials have long expressed outrage over the prospect of Ukrainian ascension to NATO. In recent weeks, they have demanded that the U.S.-led alliance vow never allow such a development. Mr. Scholz tried to lower the temperature by saying in practical terms it would be many years before Kyiv even qualifies to apply for NATO membership.
“That is why it is strange to observe that the Russian government is making something that is practically not on the agenda the subject of major political problems,” Mr. Scholz said, while backing the NATO line that Ukraine, like every other sovereign country, has the right to choose its allies.
With Mr. Biden and other Western leaders promising punishing economic and diplomatic sanctions if Russia invades, there were signs that the Kremlin may be open to another way out of the crisis.
Possibilities for talks “are far from being exhausted,” the Russian foreign minister said. His comments seemed designed to send a message to the world about Mr. Putin’s position: namely, that hopes for a diplomatic solution aren’t dead.
The Russian president noted that the West could try to draw Russia into “endless talks” without conclusive results. He also questioned whether there is still a chance to reach an agreement on Moscow’s key demands.
Mr. Lavrov replied that his ministry wouldn’t allow the U.S. and its allies to stonewall Russia’s main requests but told Mr. Putin he favored more talks.
Russia’s Interfax News Agency reported that legislators in Moscow are planning to draft a resolution urging Mr. Putin to recognize the self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk republics in Donbass, a breakaway region of Ukraine with a large ethnic Russian population and the scene of a violent civil war since 2014.
In what some saw as a sign that Mr. Putin is preparing to build on Russia’s annexation that year of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the Russian lawmakers are reportedly preparing drafts of a resolution pertaining to Lugansk and Donetsk for consideration in the coming days.
Former U.S. Ambassador William B. Taylor, who has served in Kyiv under two presidents since 2006 and now focuses on Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said he believes Mr. Putin “wants more” than Donbass and Crimea.
“I think he wants Ukraine,” Mr. Taylor said in an interview Monday on The Washington Times’ podcast “History As It Happens.”
Mr. Putin’s “obsession with Ukraine is there for all to see,” said Mr. Taylor, referencing a historical analysis that the Russian president published last summer in which he cited the close historical links between Russia and Ukraine and effectively denied Ukraine the right to exist as an independent nation.
“President Putin thinks there is no Ukraine, [that] Ukraine is not sovereign, that Ukraine is actually part of Russia,” Mr. Taylor said. “He wants to dominate Ukraine in one way or another. One way would be to invade.”
Still, the veteran diplomat said the odds right now slightly favor Russia declining to invade because of the punishments from abroad and lack of strong popular support inside Russia for military action.
Mr. Putin is scheduled to meet this weekend with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Russian ally. A joint military drill they are conducting near Belarus’ border with Ukraine has emerged as more evidence that conflict may be imminent.
Mr. Lukashenko, who has moved closer to the Kremlin as Western nations criticize his increasingly authoritarian moves, suggested that tens of thousands of Russian troops in his country for the military training maneuvers may not be leaving immediately after the exercises conclude Sunday.
Mr. Putin and top Russian military officials have repeatedly said the Russian deployment on Ukraine’s northern border is temporary. He accused the Biden administration and NATO of hyping the exercise as an excuse to provoke a war.
“Listen, this is our business. We will withdraw them when the Russian president and I decide and when the exercise ends,” Mr. Lukashenko told a visiting Ukrainian politician in Minsk on Monday, Belarus’ state-controlled BelTA news service reported. “It is up to us to make the decision. This is our territory.”
The Belarusian leader has said U.S. and Western troop deployments to NATO countries are a prime cause of tensions in the region. He said he and Mr. Putin would meet in the next few days and the status of the Russian troops in Belarus will be decided then. It was not clear where the meeting will be held.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the meeting was planned “by the end of this week,” according to the Russian Tass news service. He hinted that full withdrawal of an estimated 30,000 Russian forces from Belarus was not a done deal.
Beefed-up Russian army and naval forces have Ukraine surrounded on three sides. But the Belarus exercises, supposedly lasting 10 days and wrapping up Sunday, have been a particular concern because the Belarusian border is just 40 miles from Kyiv.
• Mike Glenn contributed to this story, which is based in part on wire service reports.
