US cautiously welcomes announcement for Russia-Ukraine talks on Belarus border

‘We’ll look forward to what comes out of those discussions,’ Linda Thomas Greenfield said on Sunday

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Washington’s Permanent Representative to the UN, addresses the media after the UN Security Council meeting in New York on February 25, 2022. Her Ukrainian counterpart, Sergiy Kyslytsya, is by her side. GettyShow less

The US government cautiously welcomed on Sunday Ukraine’s announcement of talks with Russia on the border with Belarus.

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Washington’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said the talks could present the basis for a return to diplomacy.

“We’ll look forward to what comes out of those discussions,” she told CNN.

Ukrainian fighters test an automatic grenade launcher taken from a destroyed Russian infantry vehicle in Kharkiv. AFP

Refugees from Ukraine rest after arriving at a railway station in Przemysl, Poland. AP

People walk down 17th June Street in Berlin before a rally against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. AP

Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kiev and former heavyweight boxing champion, right, and his brother, Wladimir. AP

Khreshchatyk, Kiev’s main street, lies empty as a curfew comes into effect. AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the nation from Kiev. AP

On February 27, the seventh anniversary of the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, a note stating ‘No to war!’ is placed among flowers on the central Moscow bridge on which he was shot. AFP

A member of the Ukrainian forces, wearing the Guy Fawkes mask popularised by Anonymous, patrols central Kiev. AFP

Sviatoslav Yurash, 26, a politician from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, poses with his assault rifle as he patrols Kiev. AFP

A Ukrainian serviceman and his dog look at smoke from a burning fuel storage depot after a Russian missile attack near Kiev. EPA

A refugee who fled conflict in Ukraine rests at a railway station after arriving in Zahony, Hungary. AP

A refugee boy who fled Ukraine cries at the railway station in Zahony, Hungary. AP

Civil defence members eat during a break at City Hall in Kiev. AP

An Indian student is embraced by his family at Chennai Airport after returning from Ukraine. EPA

Smoke is seen rising from behind buildings following bombings in Kiev. Getty

An armed civil defence woman holds a Kalashnikov assault rifle while patrolling an empty street in Kiev. AP

A woman fleeing from Ukraine cries as she waits to be taken to a shelter in Zahony, Hungary. Reuters

Ukrainian refugees cross the Romanian border at Siret, northern Romania. EPA

A residential building damaged by shelling in Kharkiv, north-eastern Ukraine. AFP

Apartments damaged by shelling in Kharkiv. AFP

A girl protests against Russia's military operation in Ukraine, in front of the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv. AFP

Young women protest in Tbilisi, Georgia with their hands painted in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Getty

Supplies for Ukrainian refugees at one of three camps set up at the MoldExpo exhibition center, in Chisinau, Moldova. EPA

Police detain a demonstrator during a protest against Russia's incursion into Ukraine in St Petersburg. AP

A man waits at a bus stop in St Petersburg, which has been with a painted in the colours of Ukraine's national flag. EPA

Russian ground forces approaching Nova Kakhovka, southern Ukraine. AP

A woman holds her daughter's hand as they arrive by bus from the Polish-Ukrainian border. Getty

A man drives his car full of food supplies to deliver to the Ukrainian side of the border, where thousands wait to enter Poland. Getty

Refugees arrive with buses from the Medyka pedestrian border crossing, in Przemsyl, eastern Poland. AFP

People gather to catch a train and leave Ukraine for neighboring countries at the railway station in Lviv, western Ukraine. AP

Cars form a line that stretches 35 kilometres from the Shehyni border crossing to Poland as people try to flee Russia's military operation against Ukraine. Reuters

Helena, right, and her brother Bodia, left, from Lviv, wait at the Medyka border crossing in eastern Poland. AFP

A Ukrainian soldier walks past debris of a burning military truck, on a street in Kiev. AP

People run for cover during the shelling on the city of Kiev. AP

A child refugee who fled the conflict in Ukraine covers her face in the event hall of a hotel offering shelter in Siret, Romania. AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holding a briefing in Kyiv. He said that Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan have suggested talks with Russia, which 'can only be welcomed'. AFP

Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, at a news conference in the embassy of Ukraine, Washington. AP

Manchester City footballers wear t-shirts in support of Ukraine before a match. Reuters

Ukrainian refugees arrive in Warsaw by train from Kiev. EPA

A woman waves a Ukrainian flag during a rally in Times Square, New York City. AFP

A man sits next to his dogs in an underground car park turned into a bomb shelter during an air raid alert in Kiev. AP

A woman sleeps on chairs in a Kiev bomb shelter. AP

A satellite image with overlaid graphics shows military vehicles alongside the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Reuters

A satellite image shows the effects of shelling in open fields along Soborna Street in the north-east suburbs of Kharkiv. Reuters

A big fire at a petroleum storage depot after a Russian missile attack, in Vasylkiv, near Kiev. EPA

Ukrainian servicemen take positions at a military airbase in the Kyiv region. Reuters

“We leaned in on diplomacy with the Russians throughout this process, and we hoped that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin would find a way to the negotiating table and he made the unfortunate decision of aggression over diplomacy,” she said.

“But again, this news is another effort by the Ukrainians to find a way forward.”

Ukraine announced on Sunday it would hold talks with Russia at its border with Belarus, near the Chernobyl exclusion zone and Pripyat River. The announcement followed a phone call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

The US ambassador said Washington had “always indicated that we wanted to find a diplomatic solution and Russia chose confrontation”.

Asked about Mr Putin’s order to put Russian nuclear forces on high alert on Sunday, Ms Greenfield described it as another form of Kremlin escalation.

“It means that President Putin is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable and we have to continue to stem his actions in the strongest possible way,” she told CBS News.

Ms Thomas Greenfield said the US would step up its efforts against Moscow.

“It just means that we have to ramp up our efforts here at the UN and elsewhere to hold him [Putin] accountable,” she said.

The US diplomat repeated that the deployment of American combat troops in Ukraine remained off the table, but not additional US troops to Nato countries.

The Joe Biden administration has approved sending about 12,000 troops to Nato’s Eastern flank and Germany in response to the crisis.