Blinken to meet with Russian foreign minister amid tensions over Ukraine

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday, marking a significant, high-level diplomatic engagement as the U.S. seeks to pull back Russia from the brink of a potential invasion of Ukraine.

The meeting was scheduled after Blinken and Lavrov spoke by phone on Tuesday, a senior State Department official said, elaborating that the engagement in Geneva was added to the end of the secretary’s previously scheduled travel to Kyiv on Wednesday and Berlin on Thursday.

The meeting comes following a week of intensive diplomatic discussions between the U.S., allies and partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Europe, and the Russians in an effort to defuse tensions.

The official said the meeting between Blinken and Lavrov “suggests that perhaps diplomacy is not dead”, in response to comments by Russian officials at the end of the meetings in Europe that the discussions had reached a “dead-end.”

But the official reiterated heightened concerns that Russia has positioned itself to launch an imminent invasion of Ukraine, with its massing of more than 100,000 troops along its border with the former Soviet state and warnings from the White House that ... (Read more)

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