Russia is amassing military power near Ukraine and may launch an attack on the country, Ukraine's Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar said Wednesday.
"We Ukrainians are in favor of finding a collective solution to the security problem in the region. In particular, we requested a meeting with the participation of Ukraine, UN Permanent Members, Turkey and Germany to resolve the security situation in the region," Bodnar said.
"It is important for us to ensure the defense of Ukraine," he said, adding that Ukrainians are ready to defend their country.
Bodnar emphasized that Ukraine does not want war with Russia and is not provoking it.
"I am sure that the stronger the Ukrainian army, the less likely it is that Russia will attack. In this context, it is important to provide all kinds of military support to Ukraine," he noted. "Russia poses a threat to the security of Europe, in which case the best answer is given by accepting Ukraine into NATO."
Western nations on Tuesday punished Russia with new sanctions for ordering troops into separatist regions of eastern Ukraine and threatened to go further if Moscow launched an all-out invasion of its neighbor.
The United States, the European Union, Canada and Britain announced plans to target banks and elites while Germany halted a major gas pipeline project from Russia, which they say has amassed more than 150,000 troops near Ukraine's borders. Moscow has denied planning an invasion.
One of the worst security crises in Europe in decades is unfolding as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered soldiers into Donetsk and Luhansk to "keep the peace." Washington has dismissed that as "nonsense."
Satellite imagery over the past 24 hours shows several new troop and equipment deployments in western Russia and more than 100 vehicles at a small airfield in southern Belarus, which borders Ukraine, according to U.S. firm Maxar.
Weeks of intense diplomacy have so far failed and on Tuesday both U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian canceled separate meetings scheduled with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
"To put it simply Russia just announced that it is carving out a big chunk of Ukraine," U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday.
"This is the beginning of a Russian invasion."
Plans announced by Biden to bolster Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania include sending 800 infantry soldiers and up to eight F-35 fighter jets to locations along NATO's eastern flank, a U.S. official said, but are a redistribution, not additions.
Putin did not watch Biden's speech and said Russia will first look at what the U.S. has outlined before responding, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, cited by Russian news agencies.
Early on Wednesday, Putin said he was always open to finding diplomatic solutions but that "the interests of Russia and the security of our citizens are unconditional for us."
Moscow is calling for security guarantees, including a promise that Ukraine will never join NATO, while the U.S. and its allies offer Putin confidence-building and arms control steps to defuse the stand-off.
A meeting between Biden and Putin, brokered by France, "certainly is not in the plans" at this point in time, the White House said Tuesday.
