The US and Russia meet in a last-ditch effort to resolve the crisis in Ukraine

Diplomatic heads Russia and the United States meet in Geneva on Friday in a last-ditch effort to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, Washington fears an invasion despite warnings of severe retaliation against Moscow.

The meeting between Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov comes just eleven days after the second man met in Geneva as well. They agreed to continue dialogue while Russia deploys tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border.

Unlike the January 10 meeting, which lasted nearly eight hours, Blinken and Lavrov will maintain a more brief exchange with the goal of determining whether a diplomatic route is still possible.

Both are veteran diplomats who have known each other for years. Blinkin is known for his irresistible calm and Lavrov for his intense intensity. The summit will be held on the banks of Lake Geneva, in the luxurious President Wilson Hotel, named after the American president who intervened against the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.

We are facing difficult times and it will not be resolved quickly. I don’t expect us to solve it in Geneva.” Blinken said from the Swiss city.

“But we can move forward with mutual understanding,” he added. He estimated that if Russia de-escalates the tension on the ground, “this could keep us out of the crisis in the coming weeks.”

The outlook from Washington is bleak. President Joe Biden on Wednesday saw his counterpart Vladimir Putin as likely to “move” to Ukraine and threatened harsh sanctions that would cause “disaster for Russia.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded that the comments were “destabilizing” and could “raise completely false hopes”. Among the Ukrainian deputies “who can try to solve the problem by force” in the southeast of the country.

There, the Ukrainian government has been facing an insurgency by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, backed by Moscow, that has left more than 13,000 people dead.

Russia asserts that its military deployment is due to the feeling of a threat against its security and asks NATO for guarantees that it will not accept the entry of the former Soviet Republic or expansion in the area of ​​influence of the former Moscow.

The United States rejected the idea outright, accusing Russia of undermining the post-Cold War European order by harassing another country to nurse it.

– Back to the Cold War? –

Blinken arrived in Geneva after a solidarity visit to Kiev and talks with the UK, France and Germany in Berlin, a city that symbolizes European transformation after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Any violation by Russia of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty, Blinkin said, “would take us back to a dangerous and unstable time, when this continent was divided in two … with the threat of all-out war looming over our heads.”

Despite its opposition to Russian demands, the Biden administration says it is ready to talk to Moscow about its security concerns.

One US proposal is to reimpose missile restrictions in Europe set by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed during the Cold War and abandoned by former President Donald Trump.

The White House has also offered more transparency about the military exercises. Russia does not reject these offers, but says that its main concern is Ukraine, while on Thursday it announced important military exercises in the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and Mediterranean.

Blinken asked Putin to choose a “peaceful path” of diplomacy and assured that he would not give Lavrov an official response to Russia’s requests last month.

The two diplomatic leaders will appear in front of the cameras to explain the course of their meeting.

The United States emphasizes that time is urgent. According to their intelligence, Russia is soon preparing for an invasion that could be preceded by a “pseudo-science” operation that would serve as a pretext for entering Ukraine.