Blinken Warns Russia Over Troop Movements on Ukraine Border
- He says it resembles Russia’s ‘playbook’ before 2014 conflict
- Ukraine’s Kuleba says Russia is already using gas as a weapon
Antony Blinken
Photographer: Michael Rayne Swensen/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced growing U.S. alarm over Russian troop movements near its border with Ukraine, saying on Wednesday that the American commitment to Kyiv is “ironclad.”
The U.S. still doesn’t “have clarity into Moscow’s intentions,” Blinken said at a news conference in Washington alongside his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, after Russia moved military forces to a training ground near Voronezh. He said the U.S. would be on the watch for a repeat of 2014, when Russia claimed it was provoked into annexing Crimea and stoking tensions in eastern Ukraine, a conflict that continues to this day.