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By Humeyra Pamuk

HONOLULU/DONETSK (Ukraine) – While the United States stated that the diplomatic route was open for a resolution to the standoff between Moscow and Ukraine over Ukraine, it said the Russian threat of military action was too high to justify pulling U.S. embassy personnel out of Kyiv.

Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, spoke to South Korean and Japanese counterparts after discussions on Saturday. This was following Washington’s threat that Russia’s army, with more than 100,000 soldiers near Ukraine, might invade any minute.

Moscow has denied plans to invade, and claimed it was responding to NATO Allies’ aggression.

“The diplomatic road remains open. Moscow has an easy way to demonstrate that it intends to take that route. After his meeting in Hawaii, Blinken stated that Moscow should “de-escalate rather than escalate.”

On Saturday, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke for an hour to Vladimir Putin, telling him that the West will respond strongly to any invading Ukraine. He also said that such a move would cause widespread suffering and would isolate Moscow.

Both the Biden administration and other sides did not claim that any breakthroughs had occurred. Officials from the Biden administration said that although it was a professional, substantive call, no significant change was made.

Putin claimed that Washington did not take Russia’s concerns into consideration and gave Biden no substantive answer on critical elements of his security requirements.

Washington directed most of its diplomat staff to flee Ukraine on Saturday due to imminent invasion.

We ordered that the majority of Americans who were still in Kyiv at the U.S. Embassy be evacuated. In Honolulu, Blinken stated that the risk of Russian military actions is too high and that the threat to the U.S. is real.

Washington’s European allies have begun to reduce or evacuate their Kyiv mission staff and are urging citizens not to travel to Ukraine.

LEAVE DONETSK

According to Reuters, U.S. employees at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Europe (OSCE), started leaving Donetsk in east Ukraine by car on Sunday.

OSCE is involved in operations in Ukraine, including civilian monitoring missions in Russian-backed and self-proclaimed separatist republics located in Donetsk or Luhansk. This region has seen a bloody conflict since 2014, which claimed more than 14,000 lives.

Australia announced on Sunday that it would be evacuating Kyiv’s embassy. Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged China not to remain “chillingly silence” about the crisis.

Putin was hosted by President Xi Jinping at the Winter Olympics’ opening ceremony. The two men declared a partnership of “no boundaries”, supporting each other in standoffs over Ukraine and Taiwan, and promising to work more with the West.

Putin seeks security assurances from NATO and the United States, including a ban on Ukraine entering NATO and a halt to missile deployments close to Russia’s border; as well as scaling back NATO’s European military infrastructure down from 1997.

Washington considers many of these proposals non-starters, but Washington has encouraged the Kremlin and its European allies to talk about them together.

According to the White House, Biden would be meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday. He also spoke with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zeleskiy.

Following Macron’s conversation with Putin, a French president official claimed that no signs were found from Putin telling Macron that Russia was preparing an offensive to Ukraine.

French officials stated, “We remain extremely alert and vigilant to the Russian (military), posture to avoid the worst.”

British defense secretary Ben Wallace warned against placing too much faith in negotiations, despite the best efforts of Western diplomats.

Wallace stated to The Sunday Times of London: “It might be that he (Putin), just switches off its tanks and we all head home, but there is still a whiff of Munich from some people in the West.” Wallace spoke of the 1938 pact which gave Adolf Hitler land within the Czechoslovakia. This was part of an unsuccessful effort to get him to give up territorial expansion.

“The alarming thing about this is the fact that, despite the huge amount of diplomacy that has been increased, that military build-up continued.” This story was rewritten to eliminate garble at the fourth bullet point.