随着俄罗斯军队继续在乌克兰全境推进，美国指责克里姆林宫“饿死”被围困的乌克兰城市，用美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯的话说，他周一直接呼吁俄罗斯领导人弗拉基米尔·普京“结束战争，现在就结束”
布林肯甚至求助于普京的家族历史，将克里姆林宫对乌克兰城市的围攻与二战期间纳粹德国对俄罗斯城市的围攻相提并论，那场围攻导致普京一岁的弟弟维克多(Viktor)丧生。
但在像他这样的呼吁中，由总统弗拉基米尔·泽伦斯基(Volodymyr Zelenskyy)领导的乌克兰政府敦促美国和西方领导人做得更多——除了谴责和历史性的防御援助，并提供战机、导弹防御系统和禁飞区。
美国在波罗的海的盟友对普京在乌克兰的进展越来越紧张，立陶宛总统周一警告说，这位强人领导人“不会停止”。
布林肯的访问旨在向这些北约盟国保证，美国将捍卫成员国的“每一寸”领土，正如他周一重申的那样——没有承诺将美国在该地区的任何军事部署永久化。
根据联合国的数据，超过170万乌克兰人现在逃离了乌克兰，因为俄罗斯军队入侵，炮击和轰炸了乌克兰各地的城市，造成至少406名平民死亡，联合国警告说，实际数字“要高得多”。
在注意到难民人数激增后，布林肯和拉脱维亚外交部长埃德加·林科维奇一起说，“更多的人试图逃离，但他们无法离开被围困的地区。...妇女和儿童、老人、受伤的平民、残疾人正试图逃离没有暖气、没有电的城市，那里的食物和药品快用完了，不断有报道称俄罗斯军队袭击了商定的人道主义走廊。”
俄罗斯否认其军队在周末违反了停火协议，但他们对南部马里乌波尔等城市的持续炮击证明这些说法是错误的。
布林肯说，这些围攻与纳粹德国对列宁格勒的围攻如出一辙，在那里，纳粹军队“系统地饿死并蓄意摧毁”这座城市，导致成千上万人死亡，布林肯说。
“那次围困影响了数百万俄罗斯家庭，包括普京总统的家庭，他一岁的弟弟是众多受害者之一。现在，俄罗斯正在饿死像马里乌波尔这样的城市。是可耻的。世界要求俄罗斯立即停止这些袭击。让食物和药品进来。让人们安全离开，结束这场针对乌克兰的战争，”他说。
普京的哥哥维克多在普京出生前的列宁格勒围城战中死于白喉。普京声称，他在乌克兰的“特别军事行动”是为了“去纳粹化”该国政府，大屠杀博物馆和纪念馆谴责这是歪曲历史的谎言，包括基辅的Babyn Yar纪念馆，该纪念馆被俄罗斯炮击损坏。
米哈伊尔·克利门季耶夫/克里姆林宫，路透社
2022年3月2日，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京出席会议。
布林肯此前援引自己的家族史来谴责普京的说法，因为他的继父是著名作家兼律师塞缪尔·皮萨，他在大屠杀中幸存下来。
这位美国最高外交官对波罗的海国家爱沙尼亚、拉脱维亚和立陶宛的快速访问旨在让这些紧张的处于战争前线的北约盟友放心，面对俄罗斯的侵略，美国将保护他们。
这种焦虑显而易见。站在布林肯一边，立陶宛总统吉塔纳斯·纳瑟达周一早些时候发出了强烈呼吁。
“安东尼，威慑已经不够了，我们需要适当的前沿防御，否则就太晚了，部长先生。普京不会在乌克兰停留。他不会停下来的。用一切可用的手段帮助乌克兰是我们的集体责任和义务，当我说所有的时候，我指的是所有可用的手段，如果我们想避免第三次世界大战。选择权在我们手中，”他在与布林肯合影时说。
“前沿防御”意味着美国军队的永久部署。拉脱维亚外交部长林克维什提出了类似的公开请求，称他的国家“希望对此有一个永久的解决方案”，但他笑着说他们最终会听从美国的意见。
布林肯明确表示，尚未就此做出决定，而是反复指出最近几周抵达的美国增援部队，包括美国军队和先进的F-35战斗机。
布林肯补充说，拜登政府“定期审查我们部队的全球态势，当然包括在欧洲这里，我们必须考虑任何发展，威胁的任何变化，我们将这样做”。
面对这些紧张的微笑，布林肯还重申了拜登反复说过的话:“我们将保卫北约的每一寸土地，抵御来自任何地方、任何时间的侵略。我们对第五条的承诺----对一个国家的攻击就是对所有国家的攻击----是坚定不移的。总统称其神圣不可侵犯。任何人——任何人——都不应该对此有任何怀疑。”
但是，在北约边境停止保护伞受到了泽伦斯基和其他乌克兰领导人的谴责。
“我们认为，拒绝禁飞区的想法是基于对北约作为一个联盟的力量缺乏信心，”乌克兰外交部长Dmytro Kuleba，周六在波兰和乌克兰边境会见了布林肯，周一告诉美国广播公司的“早安美国”。
“北约的军事力量比俄罗斯大得多，所以如果与北约的战争开始，俄罗斯为什么敢击落北约的飞机，知道它注定要失败，最终会失败?”他补充道。
但这正是为什么，布林肯说，拜登政府反对禁飞区。
“我们的努力都是为了尽快结束这场战争，尽快结束这场苦难，我们不想做的是扩大这场战争，扩大到我们自己的国家，我们自己的领土...这不符合任何人的利益，包括乌克兰人民的利益，”他周一在里加表示。
布林肯还在以色列总理纳夫塔利?本内特周末结束访俄后会见了以色列外长亚伊尔?拉皮德，称美国赞赏“朋友和盟友为寻求外交解决所做的一切努力”
为此，他增加了周二在巴黎的停留，以会见法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙，法国总统也试图发挥调解作用。
布林肯拒绝评论两国与普京接触的努力，但补充说，“我们对莫斯科、俄罗斯和普京总统的信息肯定没有改变:结束战争。现在就结束吧。”
Blinken invokes Putin's dead brother in accusing Russia of 'starving' Ukraine's cities
As Russian forces continue to advance across Ukraine, the U.S. is accusing the Kremlin of "starving" besieged Ukrainian cities, in the words of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who on Monday appealed directly to Russian leader Vladimir Putin to "end the war, end it now."
Blinken even appealed to Putin's family history, comparing the Kremlin's siege of Ukrainian cities to Nazi Germany's siege of Russian cities during World War II, which killed Putin's one-year-old brother Viktor.
But amid calls like his, the Ukrainian government, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is urging U.S. and Western leaders to do more -- beyond condemnations and the historic amount of defensive aid and provide warplanes, missile defense systems, and a no-fly zone.
U.S. allies in the Baltics are increasingly nervous about Putin's advances in Ukraine, with Lithuania's president warning Monday that the strongman leader "will not stop."
Blinken's visit is meant to reassure these NATO allies that the U.S. will defend "every inch" of member states' territory, as he reiterated Monday -- stopping short of promising to make permanent any U.S. military deployments to the region.
Over 1.7 million Ukrainians have now fled the country from invading Russian forces, shelling and bombing cities across Ukraine and killing at least 406 civilians, according to the United Nations, which warned the actual figures are "much higher."
After noting that huge spike in refugees, Blinken said alongside Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs, "Many more people are trying to flee, but they cannot get out of besieged areas. ... Women and children, the elderly, wounded civilians, people with disabilities are trying to escape cities where there's no heat, no electricity, and where they're running out of food and medicine and there continue to be reports of attacks by Russian forces on agreed-upon humanitarian corridors."
Russia has denied that its forces have violated ceasefires over the weekend, but those claims were proven false by their continued shelling in cities like Mariupol in the south.
These sieges echoed Nazi Germany's siege of Leningrad, Blinken said, where Nazi forces "systematically starved and intentionally destroyed" the city, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, Blinken said.
"That siege affected millions of Russian families, including President Putin's, whose one-year-old brother was one of the many victims. Now, Russia is starving out cities like Mariupol. It is shameful. The world is saying to Russia stop these attacks immediately. Let the food and medicine in. Let the people out safely, and end this war of choice against Ukraine," he said.
Putin's older brother Viktor died of diphtheria during the siege of Leningrad before Putin was born. Putin has claimed his "special military operation" in Ukraine is about "de-Nazifying" the country's government, a lie that Holocaust museums and memorials have denounced as warping history -- including the Babyn Yar memorial in Kyiv that was damaged by Russian shelling.
Blinken has previously invoked his own family history to condemn Putin's claim, as his stepfather was renowned writer and lawyer Samuel Pisar, who survived the Holocaust.
The top U.S. diplomat's quick tour through the Baltic countries -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- is meant to reassure these nervous NATO allies right on the frontlines of the war that the U.S. will defend them in the face of Russian aggression.
That anxiety is apparent. Standing with Blinken, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda made a strong appeal earlier on Monday.
undefinedMORE: Why a Ukraine no-fly zone isn't an option: Experts
"Antony, deterrence is no longer enough, and we need forward defense here in place because otherwise it will be too late here, Mr. Secretary. Putin will not stop in Ukraine. He will not stop. It is our collective duty and obligation to help Ukraine with all means available and when I say all, I mean all means available if we want to avoid the Third World War. The choice is in our hands," he said during a photo op with Blinken.
That "forward defense" means permanent deployment of U.S. forces. Latvian Foreign Minister Rinkēvičs made a similar public request, saying his country "would like to have permanent solutions to this," but he smiled and said they ultimately defer to the U.S.
Blinken made clear that no decision had been made yet on that, instead pointing repeatedly to the U.S. reinforcements that have arrived in recent weeks, including U.S. troops and the advanced F-35 fighter jets.
The Biden administration is "on a regular basis reviewing the global posture of our forces to include of course here in Europe and we have to factor in any developments, any changes in the threat, and we will do that," Blinken added.
To those nervous smiles, Blinken also reiterated what Biden has said repeatedly: "We will defend every inch of NATO territory against aggression coming from anywhere at any time. Our commitment to Article 5 -- an attack on one is an attack on all -- is ironclad. The president has called it sacrosanct. And no one -- no one -- should have any doubt about that."
But stopping that umbrella at protection at NATO's borders has been condemned by Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian leaders.
"We believe that the rejection of the idea of the no-fly zone is based in the lack of confidence in the strength of NATO as an alliance," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who met Blinken on Saturday at the Polish-Ukrainian border, told ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday.
"The military might of NATO is incomparably bigger compared to Russia, so why would Russia dare to shoot down a NATO plane, knowing it is doomed, eventually doomed, if a war with NATO begins?" he added.
But that's precisely why, Blinken said, the Biden administration opposes a no-fly zone.
"Our efforts are all in the direction of ending this war as quickly as possible, ending the suffering as quickly as possible, and what we don't want to do is to widen it and to widen it to our own countries, to our own territory... [That] is in no one's interest, including in the interest of the Ukrainian people," he said Monday in Riga.
Blinken also met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in Latvia's capital after Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's trip to Moscow over the weekend, saying the U.S. appreciate "all efforts by friends and allies to look for a diplomatic resolution."
To that end, he has added a stop in Paris on Tuesday to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, who has also tried to play a mediating role.
Blinken declined to comment on either country's efforts to reach out to Putin, but added, "There's certainly no change in our message to Moscow, to Russia, to President Putin: End the war. End it now."
