U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday his country has real concerns, widely shared with partners in Europe, over Russian activities at the Ukrainian border, after Ukraine said it feared Russia might be preparing an attack.
"We don't know what President Putin's intentions are. But we do know what's happened in the past. We know the playbook of trying to cite some illusory provocation from Ukraine or any other country and using that as an excuse for what Russia plans to do all along," Blinken said.
He was referring to the crisis that erupted in 2014 when Russia, following the toppling of a Ukrainian government that had resisted moves towards the West, seized the Crimea peninsula and backed separatists waging a conflict in Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking east.
Putin on Thursday accused Western nations of escalation the Ukraine conflict by holding drills in the Black Sea and flying bombers near its borders.
