UN council backs talk, but no Russia pledge against invasion

United Nations: One by one, UN Security Council members called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Ukraine.

Even Russia's deputy foreign minister said everything should be done to find a diplomatic solution. But he didn't respond to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's appeal to state unequivocally that Russia will not invade Ukraine.

So what Blinken called the most immediate threat to international peace and security in the world today remains, with all eyes still on Russia.

The annual Security Council meeting was called by Russia to focus on implementation of the Minsk Agreements aimed at restoring peace to eastern Ukraine where Russian-backed separatist have been at war with government troops since Moscow's invasion of Crimea in 2014.

The open session brought together all the key players who now confront broader security grievances from Moscow: It is demanding a NATO ban on Ukraine joining the alliance, which its members say is impossible. Blinken, alluding to a speech to the Security Council by his predecessor Colin Powell in 2003 laying out purported US evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction ahead of the American invasion which turned out to be erroneous, told council members he wanted to be clear: "I am here today not to start a war, but to prevent one."

But Blinken said US information indicates that the more than 150,000 troops Russia has amassed around Ukraine "are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days."

He said the world can expect Russia "to manufacture a pretext" for its attack, possibly fabricating a terrorist bombing inside Russia, inventing the discovery of a mass grave, staging a drone strike against civilians or a fake or real attack using chemical weapons. In the past few days, Russian media "has already begun to spread some of these false alarms and claims, to maximize public

outrage," he said.