Thread by @Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Russia could launch a new attack on Ukraine at 'very short notice' as he met the country's president on the first leg of a new diplomatic push to avert war reut.rs/3fCqd4O 1/6

Russia said tension around Ukraine was increasing and it was still waiting for a written U.S. response to its sweeping demands for security guarantees from the West 2/6

The pessimistic statements highlighted the gulf between Washington and Moscow as Blinken gears up for a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday that a Russian foreign policy analyst called 'probably the last stop before the train wreck' 3/6

Blinken told diplomats at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv that a Russian build-up of tens of thousands of troops near the Ukrainian border was taking place with 'no provocation, no reason' 4/6

The United States says Russia is threatening its post-Soviet neighbor and may be poised for a new invasion, eight years after it seized Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatist forces who took control of large parts of the east of the country 5/6

Russia says it feels menaced by Kyiv's growing ties with the West and wants to impose 'red lines' to prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO and to get the alliance to pull back troops and weapons from eastern Europe reut.rs/3fCqd4O 6/6