The US would examine all options to improve diplomacy with Russia if an opportunity presented itself.
Still, Moscow has shown no readiness to engage in substantive negotiations, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday.
At a news conference with his French colleague Catherine Colonna, Blinken said, “Every indication is that far from being eager to engage in genuine dialogue, President Putin continues to push in the other way.”
He said that while “doubling and tripling down” on its attacks, Moscow was “considering and would examine all measures to promote diplomacy if we find a chance to advance it by whatever means.”
In what Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of doing as part of a campaign to scare residents in advance of the chilly winter, Russia has increased its missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s electricity and water infrastructure this week.
READ MORE: Sunak maintains an early lead in the race to become UK Prime Minister
Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, said in an interview earlier this month that his country was open to discussing methods to stop the conflict, which is now in its ninth month, with either the United States or Turkey, but that no genuine offers to talk had yet been made.
Comparisons to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which put the world on the verge of nuclear war and raised the issue of whether Washington and Moscow should have negotiations to prevent a war’s spread, including a nuclear exchange, have been made with the most significant crisis in Europe in decades.
Blinken and other U.S. officials have repeatedly repeated that Moscow has shown no interest in substantive engagement.
According to a Pentagon statement, in their first conversation since May, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stressed the need to keep communication lines open despite Ukraine’s conflict.
Putin increased the authority of Russia’s regional governors in a televised speech to his Security Committee.
He also authorized the formation of a coordination council led by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to assist his “special military operation.”