ARMY BUILD-UP NEAR UKRAINE: BIDEN RAISED CONCERNS WITH PUTIN

US President Joe Biden has communicated his concerns about Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as the US commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has said.

“That’s what we intend to do going forward, but we intend to do that through high-level diplomatic communication, not through issuing public ultimatums,” Sullivan told MSNBC.

Relations are worse than during Cold War: Lavrov

Russia’s top diplomat has said that relations with the US are now even worse than during Cold War times because of a lack of mutual respect. Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow stands ready to normalise ties with Washington, but the US should stop posturing like a “sovereign” while rallying its allies against Russia and China.

Lavrov said if the US shuns a mutually respectful dialogue on the basis of a balance of interests, “we would live in conditions of a Cold War or worse”.

“During the Cold War, tensions were flying high, and risky crisis situations often emerged, but there was also a mutual respect,” Lavrov said in an interview. “It seems to me there is a deficit of it now.”

Earlier this month, the Biden administration slapped Russia with tough sanctions for allegedly interfering in the 2020 US presidential election and for involvement in the SolarWind hack of federal agencies - activities that the Russian government has firmly denied.