Russia, US exchange accusations over Ukraine

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield shot back that Russia’s growing military force of more than 1,00,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders was “the largest mobilization” in Europe in decades, adding that there has been a spike in cyberattacks and Russian disinformation

Russia, US exchange accusations over Ukraine

An instructor shows how to use weapons to a group of women during training in Kharkiv, Ukraine on Sunday. Some people in Ukraine’s second-largest city are preparing to fight back if Russia invades. Pic/AP

Russia accused the West on Monday of “whipping up tensions” over Ukraine and said the U.S. had brought “pure Nazis” to power in Kyiv as the U.N. Security Council held a stormy and bellicose debate on Moscow’s troop buildup near its southern neighbor.

“And they are attempting, without any factual basis, to paint Ukraine and Western countries as the aggressors to fabricate a pretext for attack,” she said.

The harsh exchanges in the Security Council came as Moscow lost an attempt to block the meeting and reflected the gulf between the two nuclear powers. It was the first open session where all protagonists in the Ukraine crisis spoke publicly, even though the U.N.’s most powerful body took no action.

Hours later, the Russian government sent a written response to a U.S. proposal aimed at deescalating the crisis, according to three Biden administration officials. The officials all spoke on the condition of anonymity. A State Department official declined to offer details of the response, saying it “would be unproductive to negotiate in public” and that they would leave it up to Russia to discuss the counterproposal.

Russia denies responding to US proposal

A Russian diplomat on Tuesday however denied reports that Moscow sent Washington a written response to a U.S. proposal aimed at deescalating the Ukraine crisis.

But Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko on Tuesday told Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency that this was “not true.” The agency also cited an unnamed senior diplomat in the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sent a message to his Western colleagues, including U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken about “the principle of indivisibility of security,” but it wasn’t a response to Washington’s proposals.

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