From: slider@anashram.com

MOSCOW — Senior representatives of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are meeting Wednesday in Paris in a bid to revive the stalled Ukraine peace process, as analysts warn that Russia’s military escalation near Ukraine’s borders is moving into a more advanced stage.

Adding to the growing tension, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
warned Wednesday that Moscow “would not sit idly by” as the West supplies Kyiv with lethal weapons, after Ukraine took delivery Tuesday of 79 tons
of arms, including U.S. antitank missiles, intended for self-defense.

Speaking to the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, Lavrov
said: “It would suffice to mention the increasingly provocative exercises held near our borders, the drawing of the Kyiv regime into the NATO orbit,
its supply with lethal weapons, and the push for its direct provocations against the Russian Federation,” according to an official transcript of
his remarks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/26/ukraine-russia-sanctions-biden-putin/

In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing for a diplomatic
solution in four-way talks involving France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.

Here’s what you need to know about Russia’s military buildup on the border with Ukraine

Macron will also put forward his own proposal to de-escalate the crisis to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call Friday.

Moscow has massed more than 100,000 troops and military equipment near
Ukraine and is running simultaneous military exercises, as two weeks of high-level shuttle diplomacy have failed to resolve the crisis over
Moscow’s key demand that Ukraine and other countries be blocked from NATO membership.

Moscow officials’ rhetoric has grown increasingly belligerent as Russia
has increased its military buildup near Ukraine, steadily intensifying the pressure on Washington and NATO to accept its demands.

Putin accused Kyiv last month of “genocide” in the eastern separatist Donbas region of Ukraine, while other officials have warned that the confrontation could evolve into a scenario akin to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the world edged toward nuclear war after the Soviet Union
deployed nuclear weapons in Cuba.

Lavrov said Washington was doing everything possible to undermine the
ruble and deplete Russia’s foreign currency reserves. He warned that
Moscow would respond if the West continued its “aggression” against Russia.

Russian markets have plunged in recent days, and the ruble has plummeted
in response to fears of a major war on Europe’s border.

In meeting that Italian government tried to stop amid Ukraine crisis,
Putin speaks to Italian CEOs via video

Macron is pushing a more proactive European role in resolving the security crisis, as the United States seeks to maintain transatlantic unity on
tough sanctions to deter a new Russian attack on Ukraine.

But with NATO firmly ruling out Russia’s key demands — including an end to NATO expansion and removal of NATO forces and equipment from Eastern
Europe — doubts remain about whether French efforts to revive the Ukraine peace process can help de-escalate the crisis.

Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of France’s Foundation for Strategic Research, said Macron has sought to resolve global crises in the past.

“You have to place it in a broader context of a president who tries — and often fails — to solve crises,” said Tertrais.

The United States warned Tuesday that it could impose some of its toughest sanctions ever on Russia if it attacks Ukraine, as Washington moves to
prepare European allies for a potential Kremlin-initiated fuel crisis.

The Biden administration is “prepared to implement sanctions with massive consequences that were not considered in 2014,” when Russia annexed Crimea
from Ukraine, a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday. The “top of the escalation ladder” could involve using an export control that would cripple parts of Russian technology and aerospace industries, while depriving Russians of some technology consumer goods, said the official,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the White
House. Such a measure has been used only once, against the Chinese tech
company Huawei.

President Biden also warned of personal sanctions against Putin, in what
would be an unprecedented move against the leader of a major power.
Britain and the United States have discussed blocking Russia from the
SWIFT international payments system, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
said Tuesday. He said such a move would “be a very potent weapon,” noting that U.S. collaboration would be necessary to carry out such an action.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said U.S. sanctions threats were “destructive.”

These countries are withdrawing embassy staffers from Ukraine amid growing fears of an invasion by Russia

Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday supported a diplomatic solution to the crisis but insisted that Western powers are united over
strong sanctions on Russia should it invade, speaking at a joint news conference after meeting in Berlin.

Paris is pushing to reinvigorate the Normandy Format talks, a
long-standing but stalled peace effort involving France, Germany, Ukraine
and Russia to implement the 2015 Minsk peace agreement and resolve an eight-year conflict in eastern Ukraine. Political advisers from the four countries are meeting Wednesday in Paris.

Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of breaching the Minsk deal, which
has failed to end the war over two separatist Russian-backed areas in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The conflict has raged since 2014,
shortly after Russia annexed Crimea, claiming more than 13,000 lives.

Tara Varma, head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the fact that talks took place marks “a step forward.”

But the entrenched differences between Russia and Ukraine make a swift breakthrough unlikely, a position complicated by Russia’s insistence that
the war is an internal Ukrainian conflict, to which Moscow is not a party.

Moscow officials insist the crisis between Russia and NATO is not limited
to Ukraine’s aim to join NATO, but also Russia’s demand to remove all NATO forces and equipment from Eastern Europe. .

As Russia mounts simultaneous military exercises across the country
involving the deployment of tactical missiles, Moscow officials deny any
plans for an attack on Ukraine and insist on its right to deploy its
military wherever it likes in Russia..

Russia has also threatened to cut off the supply of natural gas it sends

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