UN Security Council set to meet in Ukraine crisis: Live updates | Ukraine-Russia crisis News
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The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet for the first time on Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine at the request of the United States, and all key players are expected to square off in public over the possibility of a Russian invasion.
Monday’s meeting in New York comes days after intensified Western warnings that Moscow could attack Ukraine this month.
Denials from Moscow and pleas from Ukraine’s president for no unnecessary “panic”Have failed to ease the growing concerns.
Kyiv’s Western allies – including the United States and the European Union – have repeatedly threatened to roll out sweeping economic sanctions on Russia should it roll its military into Ukraine.
Moscow meanwhile has demanded NATO curb its activity in Eastern Europe and never allow Ukraine to become a member.
Here are all the latest updates:
Kremlin says no date set for response to US, NATO
Russian President Vladimir Putin will respond to counter-proposals from the US and NATO “when he considers it necessary”, with no date set for now, the Kremlin has said.
Washington and Brussels responded last week to Moscow’s demands for legally binding security guarantees, issued in December. Putin said on Friday that the responses had not addressed Moscow’s main security demands but that Russia was ready to keep talking.
Johnson to tell Putin to “step back from the brink”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will tell Putin to “step back from the brink” over Ukraine when the two leaders speak this week.
“What I will say to President Putin, as I’ve said before, is that I think we really all need to step back from the brink, and I think Russia needs to step back from the brink,” Johnson told reporters.
Kremlin slams UK sanctions threats
The Kremlin says the UK’s threats to introduce sanctions against Russian companies and businessmen linked to Putin are alarming and warns such actions will backfire by hurting British companies.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the suggested action represented an attack on Russian businesses, undermined Britain’s investment climate and inflamed tensions in Europe.
Russia will respond to any such action in a way that would be based on its interests, he told a news briefing.
Ukrainian police detain suspected riot plotters
Ukrainian police have detained a group of people suspected of preparing mass riots in Kyiv and other cities, according to the country’s interior minister.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy told a televised briefing the arrests were made on Sunday. He said that about 5,000 people were supposed to take part in riots and clashes with police in five cities in northern and central Ukraine.
“This action, which was planned in advance, was originally aimed at violent actions and organizing riots and had nothing to do with peaceful protests,” Monastyrskiy said. “It was… intended precisely to shake up and destabilize the situation in Ukraine.”
Monastyrskiy did not say how many people had been detained or who was behind the planned unrest.
The UN Security Council and its role in the Ukraine crisis
- The US has described the UNSC meeting, which Washington requested, as a chance for Russia to explain itself.
- But Moscow signed it could try and block the meeting of the 15-member body. Nine votes are needed for it to proceed.
- Aside from members having the opportunity to air their views openly, there will be no action by the Council – even if Russia were to invade Ukraine. A simple statement needs consensus support and Russia could veto any bid for a resolution.
- Russia is one of five permanent, veto-wielding powers on the council along with China, France, the UK and the US.
- On Tuesday, Russia takes over the Council’s rotating presidency for February. The largely administrative role does involve scheduling meetings, so some diplomats warn Moscow could delay future attempts by council members to request discussions on the crisis.
Russian navy concludes anti-submarine drills
Vessels of Russia’s Northern Fleet have completed anti-submarine drills in the Norwegian Sea, the Russian defense ministry has said.
The ministry said in a statement that a Russian missile cruiser and a frigate aided by a specially equipped helicopter practiced various ways of locating submarines during the manoeuvres.
The drills were part of a broader naval exercise involving more than 140 vessels from all of Russia’s fleets in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the North, Okhotsk and Mediterranean seas.
UK threatens sanctions on those ‘with closest links to the Kremlin’
The UK will sanction businesses and people with the closest links to Putin if Moscow takes any action against Ukraine, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Simon Clarke has said.
“We are very clear that if Russia takes further action against Ukraine, then we will further tighten the sanctions regime targeting those businesses and people with the closest links to the Kremlin,” Clarke told UK broadcaster Sky News.
Since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, London has become the pre-eminent global center for a vast outflow of money from former Soviet republics.
Double heads towards one-week high vs dollar
The ruble has been strengthened and is approaching a one-week high versus the dollar after Moscow’s indication last week that it is ready to continue dialogue with the West over Ukraine.
At 07:30 GMT, the double was 0.4 percent stronger against the dollar at 77.46. It had sunk to a near 15-month low last week of 80.4125.
The currency had gained 0.2 percent to trade at 86.45 versus the euro.
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