美国国务院一名高级官员周二表示，美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯本周将前往乌克兰、德国和瑞士，这一迹象表明“或许外交尚未消亡”。

随着俄罗斯继续在乌克兰边境附近集结军队和军事装备，包括现在的盟国白俄罗斯，美国和欧洲国家越来越担心克里姆林宫可能准备对乌克兰发动袭击。

但布林肯将于周五在日内瓦会见俄罗斯外长谢尔盖·拉夫罗夫，为外交打开大门。

“这是一个极其危险的情况。我们现在正处于一个阶段，俄罗斯可能在任何时候对乌克兰发动攻击，”白宫新闻秘书珍·普萨基周二表示，美国关于俄罗斯领导人弗拉基米尔·普京可能攻击其邻国的口头警告急剧增加。

在与拉夫罗夫坐下来之前，布林肯将会见乌克兰总统泽伦斯基和外交部长库雷巴，这是他第二次以国务卿身份访问基辅——在中央情报局局长比尔·伯恩斯访问一周后——并前往柏林与德国、法国和英国的对应方举行峰会。

俄罗斯外交部/阿纳多卢通讯社通过盖蒂图像

美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯和俄罗斯外交部长谢尔盖·拉夫罗夫于11月15日会面..

几个月的俄罗斯军队集结和好战言论导致了上周一系列高风险的外交会议。但是美国和俄罗斯的一对一会谈，北约和莫斯科之间的峰会，以及欧洲安全与合作组织的会议都没有结果。

普京在上个月的两项条约草案中提出了他的要求，包括禁止乌克兰加入北约，以及西方军事联盟将其军队撤出东欧成员国。但几周以来，美国和北约称这些努力是徒劳的，而是提出就军备控制或军事演习等其他问题进行谈判，并威胁说，如果俄罗斯攻击乌克兰，将实施大规模制裁。

俄罗斯否认了入侵乌克兰的计划，该国军队领导东部军队与政府进行了长达8年的战争，并继续占领克里米亚半岛。它警告说，如果它的要求得不到满足，它将采取“军事技术”措施来应对。

在俄罗斯的推动下，冲突的威胁非但没有缓解，反而似乎在上升。俄罗斯国防部周二证实，克里姆林宫已开始向乌克兰北部邻国白俄罗斯派遣军队，参加下个月的军事演习，其中包括来自乌克兰远东地区的军队。俄罗斯国防部表示，演习旨在让俄罗斯和白俄罗斯军队做好准备，“挫败和击退外国侵略。”

“这既不是演习，也不是正常的部队调动，”这位国务院高级官员告诉记者。“这是一种实力展示，目的是在俄罗斯计划可能的入侵之际，为危机制造或提供虚假借口。”

另一名国务院高级官员周二晚些时候更进一步，质疑强人亚历山大·卢卡申科领导的白俄罗斯政府是否真的掌权，并指责克里姆林宫“利用”他在“有关”部队部署方面的弱点。

“随着时间的推移，卢卡申科越来越依赖俄罗斯提供各种支持，我们知道普京不会免费提供这种支持。...不可避免的是，卢卡申科在执政的27年里一直声称自己是白俄罗斯主权和独立的保证人，他越来越多地表明，为了继续掌权，他将不惜一切代价。

这一大胆的指控似乎表明，美国深切担心普京正在这里进行另一次权力转移——这一次是为了加深他在白俄罗斯的影响力。

但美国显然认为这是莫斯科更容易攻击乌克兰的一种方式——基辅距离白俄罗斯边境数百英里，而不是乌克兰与俄罗斯的东部边境。这位国务院第二高级官员说，这一部署使俄罗斯对乌克兰发动攻击的能力“增加了——机会增加了，途径增加了，路线增加了”。

上周五，白宫还表示，美国掌握的情报显示，俄罗斯已经部署了受过城市战和爆炸物训练的特工人员，以进行可能的“假旗”行动，这也可能被用作入侵的借口——克里姆林宫方面否认这是“完全的虚假信息”

布林肯和拉夫罗夫星期二进行了交谈，并同意星期五在日内瓦会晤。美国和俄罗斯代表团上周在日内瓦会晤。他们的会面将是缓和紧张局势的又一次尝试，但还不清楚会有什么新进展。

“现在判断俄罗斯政府是否真正对外交感兴趣，是否准备真诚地认真谈判，或者是否会以讨论为借口，声称外交没有解决莫斯科的利益，还为时过早。我现在不能对此做出判断，但我确实理解我们这一方检验这一假设的愿望，”第一位国务院高级官员说。

在前往瑞士之前，布林肯将在基辅由泽伦斯基主持。几天前，一个由美国国会议员组成的两党代表团访问了瑞士，并誓言美国也将继续提供支持，包括武器。

康涅狄格州参议员克里斯·墨菲(Chris Murphy)告诉美国广播公司新闻，“就在我们说话的时候，还有额外的美国物资被送往乌克兰，以确保他们有反击所需的物资”。

一名美国高级官员向美国广播公司证实，布林肯的访问紧随中央情报局局长彭斯上周的访问之后。这位官员说，伯恩斯还会见了泽伦斯基和他的情报同行，讨论了目前对乌克兰风险的评估。

在基辅和日内瓦之间，布林肯将于本月第二次会见德国外交部长安娜莱娜·贝尔博克，德国新政府对俄罗斯入侵时任何潜在制裁的力度至关重要。布林肯和贝尔博克也将会见他们的法国和英国同行，以示外交团结。

然而，这种团结出现了一些破裂的迹象，尤其是在北溪2号管道上。该项目将把天然气从俄罗斯输送到德国，避开乌克兰，并消除基辅的一个关键收入来源。基辅已向美国施压，要求美国制裁建造该项目的德国公司。但拜登拒绝这样做，称与德国的关系将受到影响。

在巨大的国际压力下，德国新总理奥拉夫·斯科尔斯周二表示，如果俄罗斯攻击乌克兰，他将准备停止管道建设——这是莫斯科如果继续前进将面临的成本的另一个信号。

“如果俄罗斯真的对一个与北约国家接壤的主权国家发动攻击，那么北约很可能会大幅增加其军事活动、资金，甚至是成员资格——这是俄罗斯声称试图避免的一切，”前国防部副部长、现已退休的中情局准军事官员米克·马尔罗伊(Mick Mulroy)表示。

这可能包括“北溪2号”的结束，以及美国增加对乌克兰的武器和训练——马尔罗伊补充说，“俄罗斯可能会在乌克兰陷入一场旷日持久的反叛乱运动，他们很快就会后悔。”

In 'extremely dangerous' moment, top US diplomat travels to Ukraine, to meet Russian counterpart

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to Ukraine, Germany, and Switzerland this week - a sign "perhaps that diplomacy is not dead," a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

As Russia continues to mass troops and military equipment near Ukraine's borders, including now in allied Belarus, the U.S. and European countries have become increasingly concerned the Kremlin may be preparing to launch an attack on Ukraine.

But Blinken will meet his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva on Friday, keeping the door to diplomacy open.

"This is an extremely dangerous situation. We're now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday -- a sharp rise in the United States' rhetorical warnings that Russian lead Vladimir Putin may attack his neighbor.

Before sitting down with Lavrov, Blinken will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in his second visit to Kyiv as secretary - one week after CIA Director Bill Burns visited - and travel to Berlin for a summit with his German, French, and British counterparts.

Months of Russian troop buildups and bellicose rhetoric led to a series of high-stakes diplomatic meetings last week. But the one-on-one U.S.-Russia talks, a summit between NATO and Moscow, and a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ended inconclusively.

Putin laid out his demands in two draft treaties last month, including that Ukraine be barred from joining NATO and that the Western military alliance pull its troops out of Eastern European member states. But for weeks, the U.S. and NATO have called those nonstarters, instead offering to negotiate on other issues like arms control or military exercises and threatening massive sanctions if Russia attacks Ukraine.

Russia has denied that it plans to invade Ukraine, where its troops have led eastern forces in a war against the government for eight years now and continue to occupy the peninsula Crimea. It has warned that if its demands aren't met, it will respond with "military technical" measures.

Rather than tensions defusing, the threat of conflict seems to be rising, engineered by Russian moves. The Kremlin has begun moving troops into Belarus, Ukraine's neighbor to the north, for military exercises next month, including troops from its far east, Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed Tuesday, saying the exercises were designed to prepare Russian and Belarusian forces to "thwart and repel a foreign aggression."

"This is neither an exercise nor normal troop movement," the senior State Department official told reporters. "It is a show of strength designed to cause or give false pretext for a crisis as Russia plans for a possible invasion."

A second senior State Department official went further later on Tuesday, calling into question whether the Belarusian government of strongman Alexander Lukashenko is really in charge and accusing the Kremlin of "preying" on his vulnerabilities with this "concerning" troop deployment.

"Over time, Lukashenka has relied more and more on Russia for all kinds of support, and we know that Putin doesn't give that support for free. ... There is no escaping that having dedicated his 27 years in office to claiming to be the guarantor of Belarus's sovereignty and independence, Lukashenka has increasingly shown that he will trade it all in order to stay in power," the senior official said.

The bold accusation seems to be a sign of deep U.S. concern that Putin is making another power move here - this time to deepen his influence in Belarus.

But the U.S. clearly sees it as a way for Moscow to more easily attack Ukraine, too - with Kyiv hundreds of miles closer to Belarus's borders than to Ukraine's eastern border with Russia. The deployment gives "increased capability for Russia to launch this attack - increased opportunity, increased avenues, increased routes" against Ukraine, the second senior State Department official said.

Last Friday, the White House also said the U.S. had intelligence that Russia had positioned operatives trained in urban warfare and explosives for a possible "false-flag" operation that could also been used as pretext for an invasion - something the Kremlin denied as "complete disinformation."

Blinken and Lavrov spoke Tuesday and agreed to meet Friday in Geneva, where U.S. and Russian delegations met last week. Their meeting will be another attempt to deescalate tensions, but it's unclear what new ground there is to tread.

"It is still too early to tell if the Russian government is genuinely interested in diplomacy, if it is prepared to negotiate seriously in good faith, or whether it will use discussions as a pretext to claim that diplomacy didn’t address Moscow’s interest. I just can’t judge that now, but I do understand the desire on our side to test that hypothesis," the first senior State Department official said.

Before traveling to Switzerland, Blinken will be hosted by Zelenskiy in Kyiv, days after a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers visited and vowed continued U.S. support too, including arms.

"As we speak there are additional U.S. supplies that are being sent to Ukraine to make sure that they have what they need to fight back," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told ABC News.

Blinken's visit comes on the heels of CIA Director Burns's last week, a senior U.S. official confirmed to ABC News. Burns also met with Zelenskiy and with his intelligence counterparts to discuss current assessments of the risk to Ukraine, the official said.

In between Kyiv and Geneva, Blinken will meet German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock for the second time this month, with the new German government critical to the strength of any potential sanctions if Russia invades. Blinken and Baerbock will also meet their French and British counterparts in a show of diplomatic solidarity.

There had been some signs of cracks in that unity, however, especially over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The project would bring natural gas from Russia to Germany, sidestepping Ukraine and removing a key source of revenue for Kyiv, which has pressed the U.S. to sanction the German company constructing it. But Biden has refused to do so, saying relations with Germany would suffer.

Amid intense international pressure, Germany's new chancellor Olaf Scholz indicated Tuesday that he would be prepared to halt the pipeline if Russia attacks Ukraine - another signal of the costs Moscow would face if it moved ahead.

"If Russia does launch an attack on a sovereign country that borders NATO countries, it is likely that NATO will significantly increase its military activities, funding, and even membership - everything Russia claims to be trying to avoid," said Mick Mulroy, former deputy secretary of Defense and a retired CIA paramilitary officer.

That could include Nord Stream 2's end and increased U.S. arms and training to Ukraine, too - with Mulroy adding, "Russia could end up in a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign in Ukraine, which they will soon regret."