MOSCOW (Dispatches) – Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that belligerent rhetoric by the United States and its allies will not contribute to defusing tension in relations between Moscow and Washington.
“We have heard too much aggressive rhetoric from the U.S. in the past weeks. Unfortunately, this doesn’t facilitate the reduction of tension,” he told the Govorit Moskva radio station on Sunday, TASS reported.
The development came after British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Sunday that “the world’s largest economies are united” in warning Russia that an invasion of Ukraine would have “massive” — though largely undisclosed — consequences.
Truss, who discussed the issue with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other G7 diplomats, said the group was sending a “powerful signal to our adversaries and our allies.”
“We’ve been clear that any incursion by Russia into Ukraine would have massive consequences for which there would be a severe cost,” she said at a news conference on the final day of the weekend meeting.
Diplomats from the G-7 nations — the UK, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — delivered a stern warning to Moscow as part of their conclusions to the conference Sunday.
When it comes to economic sanctions, Truss said the G7 was “considering all options.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden held talks in a videoconference format, the conversation lasted two hours. The situation around Ukraine was the prevailing subject. The leaders also discussed bilateral relations, cybersecurity and the Iranian nuclear deal.
Putin outlined to Biden during their video summit that Russian forces are deployed on the nation’s territory, not Ukraine, and do not pose a threat to anyone, Peskov said on Sunday, according to RIA Novosti.
According to Peskov, Putin stressed that the U.S. president was speaking about Russian troops stationed within the country’s borders while being thousands of kilometers away from Russian territory.
Elaborating on Tuesday’s call between Putin and Biden, the Kremlin spokesman noted that the conversation was “respectful”, adding that “scary stories” fuelled by the U.S. media that Biden tried to “frighten” Putin were not true.
Among the many pressing issues discussed by the two presidents was the concept of “red lines”. During the call, Putin stressed that these “red lines” for Moscow include NATO’s Eastward expansion and the deployment of offensive weapons in the countries bordering Russia.
“Conceptually, it is a very serious disagreement between Russia and the United States,” Peskov continued.
Commenting on the allegations of a purported “Russian invasion” of Ukraine, the Kremlin spokesman suggested that the Americans “themselves” fell for the “fake news campaign” and believed it was true.