Russia upped the ante Monday in its dangerous standoff with Ukraine, openly warning of military action if President Biden and America’s NATO allies ignore a list of demands Moscow announced late last week — a far-reaching list that some key U.S. lawmakers have dubbed a “pretext to war.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said his country is fully prepared to respond through “military-technical means” if Western powers fail to address those demands. He said NATO must not expand to include Ukraine or Georgia and the U.S. must not base additional military assets in former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Most of Moscow’s proposed security guarantees seemingly have little chance of becoming a reality. Still, some foreign policy specialists warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use their rejection to justify a major land invasion of Ukraine…

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U.S. officials have said Mr. Putin’s list of demands is unrealistic but could be the starting point for easing tensions in Ukraine and letting diplomacy take the place of saber-rattling. At the same time, the U.S. and the European Union say they are preparing unprecedented sanctions on Moscow if the Kremlin moves militarily against Kyiv…

Nearly 100,000 Russian troops are stationed near the country’s border with Ukraine. The Russian military buildup has stoked fears that Mr. Putin is prepared to seize another portion of its smaller and weaker neighbor by force, just as he did with the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Russia also backs separatists who have been battling the Ukrainian military since 2014 in the country’s disputed Donbas region.

It’s not clear whether Mr. Putin is willing to endure the casualties and the economic blowback that would result from a long-term ground war in Ukraine, but some Western governments are growing increasingly worried that military action is on the horizon…

One section of Moscow’s proposal states: “The parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments … in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the national territories of the parties.

“The parties shall refrain from flying heavy bombers equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments or deploying surface warships of any type, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters respectively, from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other party,” it says.

Such an agreement would directly impact America’s military posture in Europe and elsewhere around the world.

Although the U.S. isn’t seriously entertaining such proposals, some lawmakers say Mr. Putin has a more sinister aim: creating the threat of a crisis in order to extract concessions from NATO and the U.S.

“The Russian government’s publication of ‘proposals’ for the United States and NATO is an insult to diplomacy and seeks to extort us into ending a crisis Russia itself created. These are not security agreements, but a list of concessions the United States and NATO must make to appease Putin,” Sen. James E. Risch, Idaho Republican and ranking member on the House Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement over the weekend. “The Russian Federation made these demands with the full understanding they are impossible to accept. … Russia is clearly trying to create a pretext for war.”

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(Excerpt from The Washington Times. Photo Credit: Getty Images)