Ukraine border fears escalate as officials thrash out Biden-Putin

Relations between the U.S. and Russia, which are already tense, took another turn for the worse Wednesday after Russia said it was ordering U.S. embassy staff who have been in Moscow for more than three years to fly home by the end of January.

It said it had resorted to “retaliatory measures” after the Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said that 27 Russian diplomats and their families would have to leave the U.S. on Jan. 30, and another 27 diplomats would need to leave by June, because their visas have not been extended by the American authorities.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that Moscow regarded the departure of Russian diplomats from the U.S. as an act of expulsion and said “our American partners have forced this sort of game upon us.”

“We view the U.S. demand as an act of expulsion and intend to resort to retaliatory measures,” she said. “Members of the U.S. Embassy in Russia, who have been on their mission here for more than three years, must leave Russia before January 31, 2022,” Russian news agency TASS reported.

Psaki’s comments came after Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Monday that preparation for a summit between Putin and Biden was at an “advanced stage” but that the discussions would most likely not take place in person, news agency TASS reported.

The Biden administration has more pressing concerns regarding Russia at the moment, with Psaki saying it remains “deeply concerned” about heightened rhetoric around a reported Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border.

There have been reports of a Russian troop build-up on Ukraine’s border for weeks, prompting widespread concerns that Russia is preparing to invade its neighbor, which used to be part of the Soviet Union before its dissolution in 1991.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has been accused of sending troops and weapons to support pro-Russian uprisings in two self-proclaimed republics in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, although it denies this.

Now, many close watchers of Russia believe Putin is planning on launching some kind of military action against Ukraine, given the movement of troops and rhetoric out of Moscow, but Russia denies such notions. Putin, himself, has called them “alarmist.”