Diplomats meet in Moscow and Berlin as Russian drills held

Moscow: Britain's top diplomat urged Russia on Thursday to defuse tensions over Ukraine and take the path of diplomacy even as thousands of Russian troops engaged in sweeping maneuvers in Belarus as part of a military buildup near Ukraine that has fueled Western fears of an invasion.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss again warned Russia that attacking its neighbour will “have massive consequences and carry severe costs,” urging Moscow to de-escalate the tensions and abide by its international agreements that commit it to respecting Ukraine's independence and sovereignty.

Facing Truss across the tabe, the grim-faced Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov set a stern tone for the talks, emphasising that Moscow won't accept Western lecturing.

“Ideological approaches, ultimatums and moralising is a road to nowhere,” Lavrov said, noting that his talks with Truss mark the first meeting of the two countries' top diplomats in more than four years.

Russia has concentrated more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine's border and has launched a series of military maneuvers in the region, but says it has no plans to invade its neighbour.

It



wants guarantees from the West that NATO won't allow Ukraine and other former Soviet nations to join as members, that the alliance halt weapon deployments there and that it roll back its forces from Eastern Europe. The US and NATO flatly reject these demands.

Moscow's military buildup includes the deployment of troops on the territory of Russian ally Belarus for sweeping joint drills, which ÿentered their decisive phase Thursday.

The Ukrainian capital is located just about 75 miles (47 miles) south of the border with Belarus, and the West feared that Russia could use Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine's Kremlin-friendly was driven from office by protests, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east of the country. The fighting between Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed over 14,000 people.

A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped end full-scale hostilities, but frequent skirmishes have continued along the tense line of contact and efforts to negotiate a political settlement have stalled.