Putin-biden Zoom call is imminent, says Russia

VLADIMIR PUTIN and Joe Biden will speak via video call in the coming days, the Kremlin said yesterday, as tensions between Moscow and Washington spike over fears Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine.

During the call, the pair’s most significant exchange in six months, Mr Putin will push for ironclad “legal agreements” that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato, said Yuri Ushakov, his foreign affairs adviser.

Kyiv’s desire to join the transatlantic alliance has enraged Russia, which considers the former Soviet country as belonging to its sphere of influence.

A date for the call would be announced after Moscow and Washington finalise details, Mr Ushakov said.

The US has yet to confirm if the discussion will take place.

The announcement came as Ukraine said Russia would be ready to invade as early as next year, after Moscow amassed around 100,000 troops near the border. Moscow insists the build-up is in response to Nato exercises.

Konstantin Kosachev, a deputy speaker of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, yesterday told state media: “We don’t have any plans to attack Ukraine. We don’t have any heightened military activity near Ukraine’s borders. There is no preparation under way for an offensive.”

Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence minister, said yesterday that the country’s intelligence service is looking into “all possible scenarios, including the worst ones”.

“There is a possibility of a large-scale escalation on the part of Russia,” he said, adding that Kyiv’s mission is “to avoid it”. “One way to do it is to make sure the price of the escalation is too high for the aggressor,” he said.

Western countries have pledged to impose crippling economic sanctions on Russia if it does invade.

Nato, however, has made it clear that it will not defend Ukraine militarily in the same way it would a member of the alliance. Ukraine has been asking for a Nato membership since 2014, when Russia annexed its Crimean peninsula and backed separatist rebels in the east of the country.

Mr Putin said this week that Nato membership is a red line for Russia.