Russia touts Finland or Geneva as hosts for Lavrov-Blinken meeting, Eastern Ukraine announces evacuation of residents

MOSCOW, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Russia’s ambassador to Britain touted Finland or Geneva as potential hosts for a meeting between Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken next week, Interfax news agency reported.

The pair have held a series of meetings and phone calls in the course of the Ukraine crisis, without achieving any diplomatic breakthrough.

Meanwhile, he Netherlands plans to send military equipment to Ukraine, including rifles, ammunition, radar systems and mine-detecting robots, the government said on Friday.

“We continue to aim for a diplomatic solution”, Foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra said. “But at the same time Ukraine must be able to defend itself against a possible Russian attack.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that weapons prohibited under the Minsk peace process were being used in what he called an alarming and sharp increase in shelling in eastern Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported.

 Russian-backed separatist leader in eastern Ukraine announced the evacuation of his breakaway region’s residents to southeast Russia on Friday after an increase in shelling.

Announcing the move on social media, Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said Russia had agreed to provide accommodation for people leaving and that women, children and the elderly should be prioritised.

There was no immediate commment from Russian officials or from Kyiv, and a Reuters witness in the region’s capital of Donetsk said there were no signs yet of an evacuation.

“As of today, Feb. 18, a mass centralised evacuation of the population to the Russian Federation has been organised,” Pushilin said. “Women, children and the elderly are to be evacuated first,” he said.

Washington and its allies have raised fears that the upsurge in violence in the region could form part of a Russian pretext to invade Ukraine. Tensions are already high over a Russian military buildup to the north, east and south of Ukraine.

Russia, which denies planning to attack, voiced alarm earlier on Friday over a sharp increase in shelling in the region known as the Donbass.

Several hundred thousand people plan to leave the Donetsk People’s Republic to Russia’s region of Rostov, the Interfax news agency cited a source in the self-declared republic’s parliament as saying.

Photo – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) attend bilateral talks on soaring tensions over Ukraine in Geneva, Switzerland, 21 January 2022. EPA-EFE/MARTIAL TREZZINI