https://ift.tt/kZB5HGR a look at what U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top diplomats have been doing this week.
US–Russia
The United States slapped Russian President Vladimir Putin’s move to hold referendums on four occupied Ukrainian regions to join Russia, which has been widely seen as a prelude to annexation of those territories. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined diplomats from other countries to call out Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations.
Blinken wrote in a tweet: “Any Russian sham ‘referenda’ in Ukraine would be illegitimate and an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that are the foundation of the @UN Charter just as world leaders are gathering at #UNGA.”
The top U.S. diplomat said Russia’s aggression is worrying “countries and people across the entire planet.”
“I think it increases the pressure on Russia to end the aggression,” Blinken said, after being asked to comment on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan, during which Modi had told Putin now “is not an era for war.”
US–Ukraine
The United States said reports of a mass grave containing more than 440 bodies in the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium are horrifying. The bodies were discovered after the city was recaptured from Russian forces. “This is part, horrifically, of the continuing and ongoing story,” Blinken said Friday.