Live: Russia prepares for fresh war games along border with Ukraine

Issued on: 11/02/2022 – 11:38

11:20 am Paris time

Russia could invade Ukraine at any time, Blinken says

Russia could launch an invasion of Ukraine at any time, including during the Beijing Winter Olympics, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.

He said Washington was continuing to “draw down” its embassy in Ukraine and repeated a State Department call to American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country immediately.

“Simply put, we continue to see very troubling signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border,” Blinken told a news conference in the Australian city of Melbourne.

“As we’ve said before, we’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time, and to be clear, that includes during the Olympics.”

11:15 am Paris time

Russia presses on with war games along Ukraine’s borders

Russia on Friday prepared to hold fresh military exercises near its border with Ukraine amid renewed diplomatic talks between the Kremlin and Europe, the latter of which fears an invasion of the ex-Soviet state.

Moscow has around 100,000 troops stationed close to Ukraine’s frontier and Western leaders have scrambled to hold talks with Russia.

The Russian defence ministry said 400 of its troops would participate Friday in a “tactical exercise” in the southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine.

Seventy military vehicles, tanks, grenade launchers and unmanned aerial equipment would be involved in the exercises, it said, adding that the soldiers would stage “combat operations”.

In a separate statement, the ministry said its Black Sea Fleet had also held drills including training on “searching and destroying ships of a mock enemy”.

It said this was part of a “combat training plan of the Black Sea Fleet.”

Russia is also holding live-fire drills on the territory of its ally Belarus, which also borders Ukraine.

11:10 am Paris time

‘Difficult’ four-way Ukraine talks to resume in March

German, Russian, Ukrainian and French representatives have agreed to meet again in March after “difficult talks” in Berlin, sources close to French and German negotiators told AFP on Friday.

The meeting in the so-called four-way “Normandy” format late Thursday lasted more than nine hours, the sources said.

“These were difficult talks in which the different positions and various options for a solution were clearly worked out,” they said.

Participants from all four countries, however, remain committed to the 2015 Minsk peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow on the separatist conflict, and will “continue to work with vigour on implementing it”, they said.

They have agreed to meet again in March after the next series of meetings of the so-called Trilateral Contact Group, which includes representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)