Biden ‘fully prepared’ to hold summit with Putin over Ukraine tensions | Ukraine

The US has said that Joe Biden is “fully prepared” to hold a summit with Vladimir Putin if it would be useful in lessening the threat to Ukraine posed by a continuing Russian build up of troops.

The US secretary of state, Tony Blinken, also said Washington and its allies were ready to respond in writing next week to Russian demands on the future of Nato and European security, which Moscow has said must be addressed to avoid it taking “military measures”. But Blinken repeated the US and Nato position there could still be no compromise on the central issue of the right of Ukraine and other countries to join Nato in the future.

The offer of a summit came after talks between Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov in Geneva, as a weeks-long standoff over Ukraine teeters on the cusp of a pivotal and potentially violent phase, with rising concerns that Europe may again be beset by war.

In his remarks to the press afterwards, Blinken stressed it had not been a negotiation but a “candid exchange of concerns and ideas”, which had been “frank and substantive” and should lead to further talks.

“I told him that following the consultations that we’ll have in the coming days with allies and partners, we anticipate that we will be able to share with Russia, our concerns and ideas in more detail and in writing next week, and we agreed to further discussions after that,” Blinken said.

“If it proves useful, and productive for the the two presidents to meet, to talk, to engage, to try to carry things forward, I think we’re fully prepared to do that,” the secretary of state added. “President Biden has met here in Geneva with President Putin. He’s spoken to him on the phone or by videoconference on a number of occasions. And if we conclude, and the Russians conclude, that the best way to resolve things is through further conversation between them. We’re certainly prepared to do that.”

Lavrov called the Geneva talks “constructive and useful”.

“I can’t say whether we are on the right track or not,” the Russian foreign minister told reporters. “We will understand that when we receive the US written response to all of our proposals.”

Meanwhile, the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has invited his British counterpart, Ben Wallace, to hold talks in Moscow on the security situation in Europe, according to the Interfax news agency. It follows an invitation from Wallace to Shoigu, asking him to visit London for discussions.

The talks in Geneva were held against a backdrop of mounting evidence of Russian military reinforcements and claims that Moscow was laying the groundwork inside Ukraine for a full-scale invasion. On Thursday the US sanctioned four Ukrainians, alleging they were involved in a plot to undermine the current government in Kyiv and to prepare to install a puppet regime to collaborate with Russian occupying forces. Intelligence services in Ukraine claimed to have evidence that Russia was secretly moving weapons and oil into eastern Ukraine.

On Friday morning, Russia appeared to toughen its stance ahead of the Geneva talks. Its foreign ministry said Moscow was seeking guarantees from the west that included provisions requiring Nato forces to leave Romania and Bulgaria, countries that joined in 2004. That demand underscores the extent to which Putin is seeking to recreate the Soviet Union’s old sphere of influence.

Washington and its allies have repeatedly promised “severe” consequences such as biting economic sanctions – though not military action – against Russia if an invasion were to go ahead by the 100,000 Russian troops who have been positioned near the Ukrainian border for weeks.

Biden caused confusion among his allies just before the Geneva meeting when he hinted that western sanctions would depend on the extent of a Russian invasion. He distinguished between a “minor intrusion” and an invasion, but he has now retracted that remark after an outcry in Kyiv.

Separately, Nato’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, has invited Russia to attend a second meeting of the Nato-Russia council in which Nato would put forward detailed plans on confidence-building measures, arms control, including intermediate missiles and cyber warfare.

On Thursday, Liz Truss, the UK foreign secretary, warned Russia that any invasion of Ukraine would only lead to a disaster on the scale of the Soviet-Afghan war. Speaking at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, Truss framed the conflict in Ukraine as part of a wider dispute between what she saw as liberal states and autocracies, including Russia and China.

She urged Putin to “desist and step back from Ukraine before he makes a massive strategic mistake”. The Kremlin, she said, “has not learned the lessons of history” and an “invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and conflict in Chechnya.”

This article was amended on 21 January 2022. Bulgaria and Romania joined Nato in 2004, not 1997 as an earlier version said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report