EU, US Seek Coordinated Response To Russia Over Ukraine Crisis

Washington, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2022 ) :The United States has ordered the families of its diplomats to leave Ukraine, as rising fears of a Russian invasion pushed Western officials to meet Monday in a bid to coordinate their response and compile a battery of sanctions against Moscow.

It comes as EU foreign ministers will on Monday seek to align their response with the US when Washington's top diplomat Antony Blinken joins a meeting of his EU counterparts by videolink.

He will brief them on his talks on Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva, where the two sides agreed to keep working to ease tensions but failed to secure a major breakthrough to calm the escalating crisis.

The West accuses Moscow of threatening a further incursion into its pro-Western neighbor by massing over 100,000 troops on its border. The Kremlin insists its forces are not there to invade.

As tensions ramped up Washington authorized on Sunday the "voluntary" departure of non-essential embassy staff and urged its citizens in the Eastern European country to "consider departing now" ahead of any possible Russian military action.

The United States has led a diplomatic push to dissuade Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking Ukraine and to marshall its allies to prepare swingeing economic punishment for Moscow if he does act.

Blinken has committed to provide a written response this week to Moscow after it laid down a series of security demands that would stop Ukraine joining NATO and roll back Washington's influence in eastern Europe.

EU foreign ministers gathering in Brussels will look to sound out the United States over its plans as Europe frets it has been left on the sidelines of discussions about its own security arrangements.

Washington and EU have threatened Moscow with "massive consequences" if it sends in its forces -- but getting consensus for hard-hitting measures among the bloc's 27 nations is a complex task.

EU officials have been consulting with member states in a bid to draw up a raft of punishing sanctions in case Putin invades.

Meanwhile, Washington issued a travel advisory warning Americans to avoid all travel to Russia due to the situation "along the border with Ukraine" warning they could face "harassment".