Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday in Geneva in hopes of securing a "diplomatic off-ramp" to the Ukraine crisis, a US official said Tuesday, hours after Moscow rejected fresh talks on Ukraine unless the West responded to its demands.
With tens of thousands of Russian troops massing on Ukraine's borders, efforts have intensified to prevent a conflict and Blinken was preparing to fly to Kyiv for talks on Wednesday. His trip, which will also take him to Berlin for meetings Thursday with European allies, is the latest in a flurry of diplomacy to prevent the tensions over Ukraine from escalating into a new war in Europe.
