A two-day meeting of the foreign ministers of the G7 nations ended in Liverpool, England today, with a statement on Russia and Ukraine which maintained the bellicose and confrontational attitude of Secretary of State Tony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, with whom Blinken met separately before the general meeting. The G7 statement issued a “condemnation of Russia’s military build-up,” called on Russia to “de-escalate,” threatened “massive consequences and severe cost in response” to Russia’s alleged plans to attack Ukraine, and, perhaps most ominously, kept the door open to Ukraine joining NATO in the future, speaking about “the right of any sovereign state to determine its own future.”
Blinken was less oblique about the all-important NATO matter, which Russian President Vladimir Putin had explained to President Joe Biden in their summit videoconference was a red line for Russia. Biden had emerged from that summit to state that he had told Putin that the U.S. would organize a meeting with Russia, the U.S. and four main NATO countries to address those Russian concerns, and try to lower the tensions. Blinken said nothing of the sort. On the contrary, he strongly implied that Ukraine could well join NATO in the future:
