A senior Russian diplomat warned Thursday that a Russian military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela cannot be excluded if tensions with the United States mount.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation in Monday's talks in Geneva, said in remarks televised Thursday that he would neither confirm nor exclude the possibility that Russia could put its military infrastructure in Cuba and Venezuela.
Speaking in an interview with Russian broadcaster RTVI TV, Ryabkov noted that "it all depends on the action by our U.S. counterparts," noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia could take military-technical measures if the U.S. acts to provoke Russia and raise military pressure on it.
Ryabkov said that the U.S. and NATO have rejected the key Russian demand for guarantees precluding the alliance's expansion to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations, adding that the stark difference in approaches raises doubts about the possibility of continuing the talks.
"I do not see reasons to sit down in the coming days, to gather again and start the same discussions," Ryabkov said, adding that Russian military specialists are giving Putin options in case the situation around Ukraine worsens, but diplomacy must be given a chance.
The Kremlin gave a stark assessment of this week's diplomacy as talks moved to Vienna, where Poland's foreign minister said Europe was closer to war than any time in the last 30 years and the United States envoy said the West should not "give in to blackmail."
Russia has forced the U.S. and its allies to the negotiating table by assembling around 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine while denying it plans to invade. It says that after decades of NATO expansion, it is determined to draw "red lines" and stop the alliance from admitting Ukraine as a member or basing missiles there.
The U.S. says Russian demands to veto Ukrainian membership and halt NATO military activity in eastern Europe are non-starters, but it is willing to talk to Moscow about arms control, missile deployments and confidence-building measures.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that talks so far this week with the U.S. and NATO had yielded some "positive nuances" but this was not enough.
"The negotiations were initiated (for us) to receive concrete answers to concrete, fundamental questions. Disagreement has been registered precisely on these fundamental questions," he said, criticizing a sanctions bill unveiled by U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday that would target top Russian government and military officials, including President Vladimir Putin, as well as key banking institutions, if Russia attacks Ukraine. Peskov said sanctioning Putin would be tantamount to severing relations.
"We view the appearance of such documents and statements extremely negatively against the background of an ongoing series of negotiations, albeit unsuccessful ones," he said.
Risk of war
Talks moved on Thursday to the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), where Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau called for a peaceful resolution over Ukraine.
"It seems that the risk of war in the OSCE area is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years," Rau said in a speech, without naming Russia.
U.S. Ambassador Michael Carpenter told the OSCE meeting, "As we prepare for an open dialogue on how to strengthen security for the benefit of all, we must decisively reject blackmail and never allow aggression and threats to be rewarded."
Russia has said it will decide on its next moves after this week's talks.
"If we don't hear constructive response to our proposals within reasonable timeframe & aggressive behavior towards (Russia) continues, we'll have to take necessary measures to ensure strategic balance and eliminate unacceptable threats to our national security," the Russian mission to the OSCE said on Twitter, quoting its Ambassador Alexander Lukashevich.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Wednesday that if Russia walked away, it would show it was never serious about diplomacy in the first place.
The U.S. has largely settled on the options for sanctions against Russia should it invade Ukraine and will be prepared to impose them as soon as any tanks roll in, senior Biden administration officials said Wednesday.
Helga Schmid, the secretary general of OSCE, said the situation in the region was "perilous," noting "the urgent need to reinvigorate the debate on European security."
"It is imperative we find a way through diplomacy to deescalate and begin rebuilding trust, transparency and cooperation," she said, opening the Vienna-based body's first meeting of its permanent council this year, attended by all 57 member states including Russia and the U.S.
'No negotiations under pressure'
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Thursday that there should be no negotiations with Russian authorities over the fate of Ukraine so long as Moscow is massing troops at the country's border.
"Russian movements are part of the pressure," Borrell told journalists ahead of a meeting of EU defense and foreign ministers, insisting that there "should not be negotiation under pressure."
Talks are complicated by the unclear situation on the ground in rebel-held eastern Ukraine, where the OSCE has since 2014 been charged with ensuring peace accords are respected.
However that has failed to end fighting in the region, with conditions degrading for OSCE observers in areas controlled by pro-Russian separatists, a situation the U.S. ambassador called "extremely worrying."
"The monitoring missions have not yet recorded anything anomalous," said Carpenter, while admitting that on the border "we cannot possibly know what is actually happening."
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg also expressed his concern on Wednesday, saying the risk of conflict was "real," and urged Russia to de-escalate.