Russia-Ukraine crisis: Biden-Putin talks yield no breakthrough

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden have spoken about Russia’s military build-up, but the one-hour call ended without a breakthrough. The White House has insisted that Moscow faces “swift and severe costs” if it pushes ahead with aggression, while the Kremlin has denounced the United States’s “peak hysteria” surrounding the Ukraine conflict.

“If Russia undertakes a further invasion of Ukraine, the United States together with our Allies and partners will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia,” Biden told Putin, according to a White House press release.

While the US was prepared to engage in diplomacy, “we are equally prepared for other scenarios”, Biden said, as the two nations stare down one of the gravest crises in East-West relations since the Cold War.

The Kremlin said Putin told Biden Washington has failed to take Russia’s main concerns into account, and it had received no “substantial answer” on critical elements, including NATO’s expansion and the deployment of offensive forces to Ukraine.

Washington and its allies have warned that the Russian military, which has 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, could invade at any moment.

Putin has slammed Western claims of an imminent military threat, calling the idea “provocative speculation” that could lead to a conflict in the ex-Soviet country, according to a Russian readout of a call with French President Emmanuel Macron.