- Everything we're seeing tells us
that the decision we believe
President Putin has made to invade is moving forward.
- This is not a bluff? - I don't believe it's a bluff.
I think he's assembled the kinds of things
that you would need to conduct a successful invasion.
- We believe President Putin has made the decision,
but until the tanks are actually rolling
and the planes are flying,
we will use every opportunity and every minute we have to see
if diplomacy can still dissuade President Putin
from carrying this forward.
The purpose of the sanctions in the first instance
is to try to deter Russia from going to war.
As soon as you trigger them, that deterrent is gone.
And until the last minute, as long as we can try to bring
a deterrent effect to this, we're gonna try to do that.
- Russian troops are on sovereign Russian territory.
We don't threaten anyone.
We have our legitimate right to have our troops where we want,
on Russian territory.
- Not only Russia amassed all these troops around the border,
but they also threw their illegal armed formations
in uncontrolled Donetsk and Lugansk,
started a series of provocations.
They started shelling our civilian objects.
We have already 2 people dead, 11 people wounded,
and it keeps going as we speak.
- I think there still are three alternatives.
First one is that somehow they could settle the issue
of eastern Ukraine, Minsk Agreement and all that.
I think it's far away.
Then, second option is that we will see a full-scale war.
And the third one, which is as bad, is that we see
these kind of, like I described, two steps forward, one back.
That is increasing tensions all the time.
- I think what we are now faced with
is a new normal in European security.
We see Russia being willing to contest fundamental values
for our security by the use of force
and also by the threat of use of force.
- I reached out to Foreign Minister Lavrov some days ago.
Suggested we meet this coming week in Europe.
He came back and said, "Yeah, let's meet."
And we responded and said, "The meeting's on,
provided you don't invade Ukraine in the meantime."