“As we described it, it appears that whatever led to the actual invasion is happening,” Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“We think President Putin made the decision, but until the tanks really roll in and the planes fly, we’ll take every opportunity and every minute to see if diplomacy can still dissuade President Putin from moving forward on this,” Blinken said. He said.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reported more than 100 ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine on Saturday and said the bombing continued until Sunday, while Russian forces remained in Belarus to continue military exercises that were supposed to end.
Blinken said he was concerned that the extension of the exercises was another sign that Russia was paving the way for invasion.
“They are now justifying the continuation of the ‘exercises’ which they said will now end, the continuation of those unquoted exercises on the situation in eastern Ukraine indefinitely – a situation they have created by continuing to escalate tensions,” Blinkin said.
Blinken said on Sunday that the United States did not want to reveal the sanctions early because that would “allow Russia to try to plot against them.”
“The sanctions are primarily intended to try to deter Russia from going to war,” he said. “Once you fire them, that deterrent is gone and until the last minute, as long as we can try to have a deterrent effect on this, we’ll try to do that.”
This story is down and will be updated.
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