Says Lavrov as Russia launches Belarus military drills amid Ukraine tensions

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday said that Western threats towards Moscow would do nothing to ease tensions over Ukraine as Russia and Belarus launched joint military drills.

The war games, set to run until February 20, are the latest point of contention between Russia and the West over Ukraine. Kyiv quickly denounced the manoeuvres as "psychological pressure".

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the exercises "a very violent gesture" while British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss used a visit to Moscow to accuse Russia of attempting "to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty".

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the build up was "a dangerous moment for European security".

Lavrov replied that Western threats towards Moscow would do nothing to ease tensions over Ukraine.

"Ideological approaches, ultimatums, threats -- this is the road to nowhere," Lavrov said.

Western leaders have been warning for weeks that Russia could be preparing to escalate an eight-year separatist conflict in east Ukraine after building up of some 100,000 troops around the former Soviet state.

The United States has said Russia is also dispatching some 30,000 troops to Ukraine's neighbour Belarus for the exercises that started yesterday.

Columns of Russian missile systems rolled across snow-carpeted fields on the eve of the start of the drills in footage released by the defence ministry.

Russia has also sent six warship through the Bosphorus for naval drills on the Black Sea and the neighbouring Sea of Azov. Kyiv denounced their presence as "unprecedented" attempt to cut off Ukraine for both seas.

Answering Western concerns, the Kremlin has insisted the Russian troops in Belarus will go home after the exercises.

The diplomatic crisis has spurred weeks of talks between Russian, Western and Ukrainian officials.

Those efforts have drawn cautious optimism for negotiated solution, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying he had secured a pledge from Russian leader Vladimir Putin that Moscow "would not be the source of an escalation".

Russia has put sweeping security demands to the United States and the Washington-led Nato military alliance with the aim of reducing their role in eastern Europe and former Soviet states.