U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday how Washington believes Russia could seek to invade Ukraine, warning that Moscow was preparing to attack its neighbor in the "coming days."
Blinken, as other U.S. officials have done over the past two weeks, accused Russia of planning to manufacture a pretext for an attack on Ukraine that could include "a fake, even a real, attack using chemical weapons," and said: "Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing or a genocide."
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin rejected Blinken's statement a "regrettable" and "dangerous" move that further fuels tensions. He said Russian forces remain on Russian territory and some units were already returning to their bases following exercises.
Blinken pushed Moscow to announce "with no qualification, equivocation or deflection" that it will not invade Ukraine.
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