The US authorities continue to seek diplomatic cooperation in the context of the situation between the Russian and Ukraine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated.

At Friday’s White House press briefing, a reporter asked her whether it is fair to say that just a few days after US President Joe Biden’s conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin the ball is now in Putin’s court in the sense that the next step is up to him as to whether or not he pulls back his troops from the Russian-Ukrainian border or he moves into Ukraine. 

“I would say first that our objective continues to be diplomatic discussions.  (...).  There’s decades of precedent on this and a lot of formats that exist where those could continue.  And those could—and that is really our objective and our focus.  Those would not, of course, involve just the Russians,” Psaki responded.

“Our overarching approach here is that we’re not going to have conversations without the key players involved, whether that is conversations about Ukraine without Ukraine or conversations about NATO without NATO.  Those are our principles,” she added.

“So, that’s really what our focus is on at this point.  Obviously, all of this effort—diplomatic effort to date, coordination with our European partners, the [US] President’s very direct conversation with President Putin—was meant to convey very clearly that if he [Putin] were to choose to invade, there would be severe and significant economic consequences,” the White House press secretary noted. 

“Obviously, you know, he [Putin] is the one who has control over the military troops of Russia, not other countries.  But, certainly, our effort and our focus is to have those diplomatic discussions and have the ball move forward through that channel,” Jen Psaki concluded.