Diplomatic efforts to avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine have been ramped up, with officials from several sides of the crisis involved in high-level talks.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday for discussions with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Moscow, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are set to speak by phone.
Russia has fuelled fears of war by massing more than 100,000 soldiers near the Ukraine border but says it has no plans to invade. Instead, it accuses NATO of undermining the region’s security and wants the alliance to cease military activity in Eastern Europe and block Ukraine from membership.
The US and NATO have ruled out these demands.
Here are all the latest updates:
UK PM Johnson arrives in Ukraine
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has arrived in the Ukrainian capital to meet Zelenskyy.
“As a friend and a democratic partner, the UK will continue to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty in the face of those who seek to destroy it,” Johnson said on Twitter ahead of landing.
Qatar says it cannot unilaterally meet Europe’s gas needs
Qatar, one of the world’s top natural gas exporters, will not be able to unilaterally meet Europe’s energy needs should the Ukraine-Russia crisis impact existing supplies, the country’s minister of state for energy has said.
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi expressed hope in a statement that “tensions in Europe can be resolved diplomatically, so that all suppliers can work together to ensure energy security for the short- and long-terms”.
Rouble recovers ahead of Lavrov-Blinken talks
The Russian rouble has firmed past 77 against the US dollar and stock indexes have climbed, recovering further after a large-scale sell-off in January caused by increased tensions between Moscow and Western powers.
The rouble is moving away from a near 15-month low of 80.4125 versus the greenback hit last week. By 13:27 GMT, the Russian currency had firmed 0.8 percent to 76.73 per dollar after hitting 76.45, its strongest since January 21. Against the euro, the rouble gained 0.7 percent to 86.38.
The US and its allies have promised to impose tough economic sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine [File: Alexey Malgavko/Reuters]
US envoy to the UN says Washington committed to diplomacy
The US ambassador to the United Nations says Washington is continuing to pursue a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
“Our hope is that this will work and that Putin will understand that war and confrontation is not the path that he wants to follow,” Linda Thomas Greenfield told US broadcaster National Public Radio.
Greenfield also called Monday’s meeting of the UN Security Council “an absolute success”, saying the fractious discussions allowed Washington to publically refute Moscow’s “propaganda campaign”.
Ukraine crisis a ‘stress test for NATO’: Analyst
Theresa Fallon, the founder and director of the Brussels-based Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies think-tank, says the crisis represents a “stress test for NATO” and US allies and there is currently a “lack of clarity” within Europe over how to respond.
“Putin’s actions are showing small hairline fractures in the alliance,” Fallon told Al Jazeera from the Belgian capital. “We saw last week that … Italy had online discussions with Putin through its [Italian-Russian] chamber of commerce … and it was recently announced that Orban is going to try and make an energy deal with Moscow.
“We see also a post-Brexit United Kingdom acting very assertively, which almost shows that the European Union is a bit sluggish on activities, and Germany has blocked any sort of arms exports to Ukraine … so there isn’t necessarily a united front.”
Italian PM discusses Ukraine crisis with Putin
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has held talks by phone with Putin, his office says in a statement.
The two leaders agreed on the need to find a “sustainable and lasting solution” to the crisis and to rebuild a “climate of trust”, the statement said.
Draghi also highlighted the importance of reducing tensions “in the light of the serious consequences that a further escalation of the crisis would have”.
Finland preparing response to Moscow’s security demands, FM says
Finland is putting together a response to a letter it has received from Russia requesting security guarantees from OSCE countries, foreign minister Pekka Haavisto says.
Finland, which received the correspondence on Tuesday, shares a long border and a difficult history with Russia but is not a NATO member.
“This exchange is about the (Russian) thought that the West has added its own security at Russia’s expense. Obviously, the West has a completely different view on this,” Haavisto told reporters in Helsinki.
Driven by ‘need’ to protect Ukraine, Britons fight on front line
Alongside thousands of Ukrainian troops battling Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine are a handful of British nationals, who say they are driven to defend their adopted homeland by a sense of duty.
Read more here.
Ukraine, UK and Poland preparing trilateral security pact, Kyiv says
The United Kingdom, Poland and Ukraine are preparing a trilateral pact to strengthen regional security, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal says.
“I hope that in the near future we will be able to officially launch a new regional format of cooperation … [and] in the context of ongoing Russian aggression, we should sign a trilateral document on cooperation to strengthen regional security,” Shmygal said while hosting his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki in Kyiv.
Russia bemused by Western concerns over troop buildup
Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Moscow, says Russia is bemused by Western concerns over its troop buildup near Ukraine’s border given it staged military drills involving what the Kremlin claims were even larger numbers of servicemen last April.
“Russian officials say there was not this much concern at that time … so they believe that there is now rhetoric and false information coming from the US with the aim of trying to destabilise Russia’s relationship with Ukraine,” Jabbari said.
Kyiv said at the time that Russia had massed 120,000 soldiers near the Ukrainian border in April 2021, a concentration of forces that Kyiv’s Western allies claimed was larger than the one mobilised by Moscow when it seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
The Ukraine-Russia crisis in infographics
Al Jazeera has put together a series of infographics that explain the background of the Ukraine-Russia crisis.
Have a look here.
Putin preparing to host Hungary’s Orban
Putin is readying for talks with Orban, who has taken a softer line on the Ukraine crisis than other fellow NATO and European Union member states.
The Kremlin said before the meeting the leaders would discuss bilateral ties as well as “security issues on the European continent and regional conflicts”, an allusion to the standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine.
Orban has said he will seek an agreement to increase Hungary’s gas imports from Russia at a time when some in Europe accuse Moscow of orchestrating an energy crisis to pressure European countries.
For the first time in weeks, Putin is expected on Tuesday to publicly comment on the Ukraine crisis [File: Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via Reuters]
Blinken-Lavrov talks
The phone call between Blinken and Lavrov is expected to take place at mid-morning local time in Washington, DC.
The pair last spoke on January 21 at a face-to-face meeting in Geneva, during which they failed to reach an agreement on de-escalating the Ukraine crisis.
Their high-level meeting took place before the US and NATO had submitted their counterproposals to Russia’s security demands.
Erdogan to visit Ukraine this week: Report
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Ukraine on Thursday as Ankara continues to try and position itself as a mediator in the crisis, according to a report by Turkey’s Duvar English news website.
Citing an unnamed senior official, Duvar English reported that Erdogan will hold talks with Zelenskyy during his trip to Kyiv.
The official said plans were also being made for Putin to visit Turkey following the Beijing Winter Olympics, which are being held in the Chinese capital from February 4 to 20.
US orders embassy workers’ relatives to leave Belarus
The US State Department has ordered the family members of the staff at its embassy in Belarus to leave the country.
The move, announced in updated guidance issued on Monday, came as the department also warned US citizens against travel to Belarus due to an “unusual and concerning Russian military buildup” along Belarus’s border with Ukraine.
Poland prepared to supply Ukraine with military aid: PM
Morawiecki says Warsaw is ready to supply Ukraine with military aid including ammunition and various types of drones.
“We stand in solidarity with our Ukrainian neighbours in light of the threat they are now facing from Russia. However, solidarity and words are not enough today; now they need to be forged into action,” the Polish prime minister told a briefing for the media in the country’s capital.
“For this and other reasons, which are related to the very threatening military situation, which, unfortunately, has developed there, we are also ready to hand over defensive weapons.”
UK PM to visit Ukraine
Johnson will visit Kyiv in a demonstration of support for Ukraine, his office says.
Johnson will hold talks with Zelenskyy during Tuesday’s trip and urged Russia to “step back and engage in dialogue to find a diplomatic resolution” prior to departing London.
“It is the right of every Ukrainian to determine how they are governed. As a friend and a democratic partner, the UK will continue to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty in the face of those who seek to destroy it,” he said in a statement.
Zelenskyy pledges to expand Ukrainian army
Ukraine will increase the size of its armed forces by 100,000 people over three years, Zelenskyy says.
Addressing Ukraine’s Parliament, the president told legislators to stay united and not sow panic about the threat of a Russian military offensive.
“This decree [was prepared] not because we will soon have a war … but so that soon and in the future there will be peace in Ukraine,” he said, adding he hoped the date of another round of peace talks with Russia, France and Germany would be agreed soon.
‘We are not going to back away’: Russian embassy in US
Russia’s embassy in Washington says Moscow will not back down in the face of sanctions threats from the US and its Western allies over Ukraine.
“We are not going to back away and stand at attention, listening to the threats of US sanctions,” the embassy said in a post on Facebook, adding that it is “Washington, not Moscow, that generates tensions”.
UK reiterates sanctions warning
The UK has again warned the Russian president.
“The critical message that Vladimir Putin needs to be getting and is getting because of the role that this prime minister has taken is: There will be severe economic costs if he pursues an invasion of Ukraine,” UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Times Radio.
Johnson was expected to call Putin on Monday but was mired in scandal at home after a report into alleged lockdown-breaking parties was published.
Asked if the prime minister cancelled the call with Putin, Raab said he did not know the details, as a government statement said on Tuesday: “In an important week for diplomacy, the PM will step up diplomatic efforts and hopes to speak President Putin and other leaders this week.”
Russia denies replying to US counterproposals
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko has denied reports that Moscow gave the US a written response to Washington’s counterproposals on its security demands, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
A State Department spokesperson said on Monday that the US has received a written follow-up from Russia on the matter.
Russia has fuelled fears of war by massing more than 100,000 soldiers near the Ukraine border [File: AP Photo]
