Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday spoke with Russian President Vladmir Putin on phone and told him that Turkey wouldn't recognise move against Ukraine's sovereignty. He warned Putin against military conflict

Erdogan told Putin that Turkey would "not recognise any step against Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," his office said, adding that this was Ankara's "principled approach".

President Vladimir Putin has defied an avalanche of international sanctions and put his forces on stand-by to occupy and defend two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine.&nbsp;

Russia recognised the regions as independent this week, a serious escalation of tensions in the ongoing crisis.&nbsp;

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NATO member Turkey, which has friendly ties to Russia and Ukraine, has sought to position itself as a mediator.&nbsp;

During the phone call, Erdogan told Putin, "a military conflict would not bring benefit to anyone". Erdogan also said that Turkey prioritised diplomacy and dialogue.

"Turkey is ready to do its part to reduce tensions and maintain peace," he told Putin.&nbsp;

The Kremlin said Putin told Erdogan about the "necessity" of his decision to recognise east Ukraine's rebel Donetsk and Lugansk republics -- a move that opens the door to the presence of the Russian army there.&nbsp;

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Putin said the decision was taken "in the conditions of the aggression of Ukrainian authorities in Donbas and their categorical refusal" to abide to a peace agreement, the Kremlin said.&nbsp;

Erdogan cut short a trip to Africa amid the flurry of diplomacy over the crisis and returned Turkey late on Tuesday.&nbsp;

Speaking to reporters on the plane home, Erdogan said Turkey did not want to choose between Russia and Ukraine, in comments published in Turkish media on Wednesday.&nbsp;

"It is not possible for us to give up on both," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday spoke with Russian President Vladmir Putin on phone and told him that Turkey wouldn't recognise move against Ukraine's sovereignty.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday spoke with Russian President Vladmir Putin on phone and told him that Turkey wouldn't recognise move against Ukraine's sovereignty. He warned Putin against military conflict Erdogan told Putin that Turkey would "not recognise any step against Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," his office said, adding that this was Ankara's "principled approach". President Vladimir Putin has defied an avalanche of international sanctions and put his forces on stand-by to occupy and defend two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine. Russia recognised the regions as independent this week, a serious escalation of tensions in the ongoing crisis. Also Read | Russia-Ukraine crisis: Civilians given permission to carry firearms in Ukraine NATO member Turkey, which has friendly ties to Russia and Ukraine, has sought to position itself as a mediator. During the phone call, Erdogan told Putin, "a military conflict would not bring benefit to anyone". Erdogan also said that Turkey prioritised diplomacy and dialogue. "Turkey is ready to do its part to reduce tensions and maintain peace," he told Putin. The Kremlin said Putin told Erdogan about the "necessity" of his decision to recognise east Ukraine's rebel Donetsk and Lugansk republics -- a move that opens the door to the presence of the Russian army there. Also Read | Latest satellite pictures show Russian troop deployment near Ukraine Putin said the decision was taken "in the conditions of the aggression of Ukrainian authorities in Donbas and their categorical refusal" to abide to a peace agreement, the Kremlin said. Erdogan cut short a trip to Africa amid the flurry of diplomacy over the crisis and returned Turkey late on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters on the plane home, Erdogan said Turkey did not want to choose between Russia and Ukraine, in comments published in Turkish media on Wednesday. "It is not possible for us to give up on both," he said. (With inputs from agencies)

Moves against Ukraine's sovereignty unacceptable, Erdogan tells Putin

The western nations have started imposing sanctions. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his meeting with Russia's Lavrov. In the latest, US President Joe Biden imposed new sanctions on Russia.

Russia-Ukraine conflict: US President Joe Biden imposes new sanctions on Russia

The UK government imposed tough sanctions against five Russian banks and three billionaires from the country over President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive action on the Ukraine border.

UK PM Boris Johnson warns of more punitive actions as he sanctions Russian banks

If Russia further invades Ukraine, the Biden administration could deprive it of a vast swath of low- and high-tech US&nbsp;and foreign-made goods, from commercial electronics and computers to semiconductors and aircraft parts, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

President Joe Biden would achieve that by expanding the list of goods that require US&nbsp;licenses before suppliers can ship them to Russia, and his administration would then deny those licenses, the people said.

The measures, whose details have not previously been reported, are part of a suite of export control penalties that the United States has prepared to damage Russia's economy, targeting everything from lasers to telecoms equipment and maritime items.

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They were not announced on Tuesday as part of a round of sanctions unveiled by Biden to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for recognizing two breakaway regions of Ukraine as independent and deploying troops into the regions to "keep the peace."

But a senior administration official said, “if Putin escalates further, we will escalate further, using both financial sanctions and export controls, which we’ve yet to unveil.”

The official added: "Export controls are really potent because we’re talking about critical technology inputs that Russia needs to diversify its economy.”

The official added that the United States is "fully prepared with a very large number of countries across the world to implement those export control measures if the invasion proceeds."

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The White House, and the Commerce Department, which oversees U.S. export controls, did not respond to requests for comment on details of the potential restrictions.

The package, which was still being fine-tuned over the weekend and could change, could come even as some White House officials have pledged to spare the Russian consumer from the brunt of the penalties.

The goal of the export control measures "is really to degrade Russia's ability to have industrial production in a couple of key sectors," Peter Harrell, who sits on the White House's National Security Council, said in a speech last month. He said the administration was focused on industrial production and high-tech sectors "rather than how do we sort of target the Russian people writ-large."

The administration has been vowing to hit Moscow with a potent cocktail of banking sanctions and export controls for weeks, in response to a massing of hundreds of thousands of Russian troops along Ukraine's borders.

Reuters reported on Saturday that the Biden administration had also prepared a package of sanctions against Russia that includes barring US&nbsp;financial institutions from processing transactions for major Russian banks.

By far the most sweeping measure contained in the export controls package would take a page from restrictions placed on Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd under former President Donald Trump. It would dramatically expand the scope of the so-called Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR), requiring firms that use US&nbsp;tools to make technology overseas to obtain a US&nbsp;license before shipping them to Russia.

"It's extraordinarily novel and has the potential for being far more significant than controls just on exports of these items from the United States," said Washington lawyer Kevin Wolf, a former Commerce Department official.

US&nbsp;suppliers would also have to obtain licenses for certain Russia-bound items that do not currently require them, such as civil aircraft parts. Whether Europe would follow suit with similar measures remains to be seen.

Japan said on Tuesday it stood ready to join the United States and other G7 industrialised nations in slapping sanctions on Russia.

On Tuesday, Biden said the United States would impose sanctions against two large Russian financial institutions and Russian sovereign debt and against some Russian elites and their family members.

On Monday, as an initial response to Putin's moves into eastern Ukraine, Biden vowed to end investment in and trade with the regions while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced initial sanctions targeting Russian banks and billionaires.

Under changes proposed in the US&nbsp;export control package, the license applications, in turn, would face a strict "policy of denial" standard of review, meaning only in rare cases would the administration approve them.

In addition, Russian companies listed as so-called military end users for their alleged ties to the Russian military, including a handful of aircraft producers, would be added to a trade blacklist known as the entity list. That would broaden the scope of items the companies would need licenses to obtain.

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Finally, Washington would expand the scope of products that would need approval from the United States when sent to Russian military end users through an even broader application of the FDPR rule, subjecting to US&nbsp;licenses requirements all items made abroad with U.S. tools and destined for companies that support the military.

US&nbsp;exports to Russia were under $5 billion in 2020, according to the Commerce Department, and already face many curbs. But the use of the FDPR rule dramatically expands the impact of the restrictions included in the package.

If Russia further invades Ukraine, the Biden administration could deprive it of a vast swath of low- and high-tech US and foreign-made goods, from commercial electronics and computers to semiconductors and aircraft parts, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

If Russia further invades Ukraine, the Biden administration could deprive it of a vast swath of low- and high-tech US and foreign-made goods, from commercial electronics and computers to semiconductors and aircraft parts, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. President Joe Biden would achieve that by expanding the list of goods that require US licenses before suppliers can ship them to Russia, and his administration would then deny those licenses, the people said. The measures, whose details have not previously been reported, are part of a suite of export control penalties that the United States has prepared to damage Russia's economy, targeting everything from lasers to telecoms equipment and maritime items. × They were not announced on Tuesday as part of a round of sanctions unveiled by Biden to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for recognizing two breakaway regions of Ukraine as independent and deploying troops into the regions to "keep the peace." But a senior administration official said, “if Putin escalates further, we will escalate further, using both financial sanctions and export controls, which we’ve yet to unveil.” The official added: "Export controls are really potent because we’re talking about critical technology inputs that Russia needs to diversify its economy.” The official added that the United States is "fully prepared with a very large number of countries across the world to implement those export control measures if the invasion proceeds." Also Read | Latest satellite pictures show Russian troop deployment near Ukraine The White House, and the Commerce Department, which oversees U.S. export controls, did not respond to requests for comment on details of the potential restrictions. The package, which was still being fine-tuned over the weekend and could change, could come even as some White House officials have pledged to spare the Russian consumer from the brunt of the penalties. The goal of the export control measures "is really to degrade Russia's ability to have industrial production in a couple of key sectors," Peter Harrell, who sits on the White House's National Security Council, said in a speech last month. He said the administration was focused on industrial production and high-tech sectors "rather than how do we sort of target the Russian people writ-large." The administration has been vowing to hit Moscow with a potent cocktail of banking sanctions and export controls for weeks, in response to a massing of hundreds of thousands of Russian troops along Ukraine's borders. Reuters reported on Saturday that the Biden administration had also prepared a package of sanctions against Russia that includes barring US financial institutions from processing transactions for major Russian banks. By far the most sweeping measure contained in the export controls package would take a page from restrictions placed on Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd under former President Donald Trump. It would dramatically expand the scope of the so-called Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR), requiring firms that use US tools to make technology overseas to obtain a US license before shipping them to Russia. "It's extraordinarily novel and has the potential for being far more significant than controls just on exports of these items from the United States," said Washington lawyer Kevin Wolf, a former Commerce Department official. US suppliers would also have to obtain licenses for certain Russia-bound items that do not currently require them, such as civil aircraft parts. Whether Europe would follow suit with similar measures remains to be seen. Japan said on Tuesday it stood ready to join the United States and other G7 industrialised nations in slapping sanctions on Russia. On Tuesday, Biden said the United States would impose sanctions against two large Russian financial institutions and Russian sovereign debt and against some Russian elites and their family members. On Monday, as an initial response to Putin's moves into eastern Ukraine, Biden vowed to end investment in and trade with the regions while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced initial sanctions targeting Russian banks and billionaires. Under changes proposed in the US export control package, the license applications, in turn, would face a strict "policy of denial" standard of review, meaning only in rare cases would the administration approve them. In addition, Russian companies listed as so-called military end users for their alleged ties to the Russian military, including a handful of aircraft producers, would be added to a trade blacklist known as the entity list. That would broaden the scope of items the companies would need licenses to obtain. Also Read | Russia-Ukraine crisis: Civilians given permission to carry firearms in Ukraine Finally, Washington would expand the scope of products that would need approval from the United States when sent to Russian military end users through an even broader application of the FDPR rule, subjecting to US licenses requirements all items made abroad with U.S. tools and destined for companies that support the military. US exports to Russia were under $5 billion in 2020, according to the Commerce Department, and already face many curbs. But the use of the FDPR rule dramatically expands the impact of the restrictions included in the package.

Punishing Putin: How Biden could cut Russia off from world tech

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Russia has recognized rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine as independent republics. How will this move affect European security? Can NATO and Russia reach some sort of middle ground? Watch WION's interview with Estonia's former President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

Estonia's Ex-President speaks to WION | How will Putin's moves in Ukraine affect European security?

In a series of top-secret meetings in October, President Joe Biden’s national security team presented grim intelligence that would soon trigger a fierce effort to prevent what could become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was preparing to invade Ukraine, top intelligence and military officials told Biden. Gathering each morning in the Oval Office for the global threat assessment known as the President’s Daily Brief, they described satellite images of Russian forces methodically advancing toward Ukraine’s border.

Not only did the United States have images of troops moving into position, it also had the Russian military’s plans for a campaign against Ukraine — elements of which had already begun. At one of the morning meetings, Biden dispatched William J. Burns, the CIA director, to Moscow with a message for Putin:

We know what you’re planning to do.

Stopping him would be a challenge. Many of America’s closest allies were sceptical that Putin — a master of disinformation — would actually invade. The use of U.S. military force against Russia was off the table, so the allies would have to threaten Putin with economic pain so severe it would also have consequences in Europe and the United States. And it was far from certain that Republicans in Congress would back whatever the administration did.

On Monday, after delivering a grievance-filled speech attacking Ukraine’s sovereignty, Putin ordered troops into two Russia-backed separatist regions in the country. But it remains unclear how far, or quickly, the Russian military will advance. And by day’s end, the United States and its allies imposed only limited sanctions, reserving the full might of their response for moves that Putin might yet make.

The White House acknowledged from the start that its campaign to stop Putin might not actually prevent Russia from invading Ukraine. But at the very least, White House officials say, Biden exposed Putin and his true intentions, which helped unite, at least for now, the at-times fractious NATO alliance.

Over the course of 3 1/2 months, Biden made three critical decisions about how to handle Russia’s provocations, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior administration officials and others who requested anonymity to discuss confidential meetings. Early on, the president approved a recommendation to share intelligence far more broadly with allies than was typical, officials said. The idea was to avoid disagreements about tough economic sanctions by ensuring that everyone knew what the United States knew about Putin’s actions.

Biden also gave the green light for an unprecedented public information campaign against Putin. With the support of his top intelligence officials — and with a promise to protect the intelligence agencies’ “sources and methods” — the president allowed a wave of public releases aimed at preventing Putin from employing his usual denials to divide his adversaries.

And when it became clear this year that Putin was continuing to build up forces at Ukraine’s border, the president approved sending Ukraine more weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, and deploying more troops to other countries in Eastern Europe as a show of solidarity with Ukraine and to reassure nervous allies on NATO’s eastern flank.

On Sunday morning, nearly four months after those meetings, Biden once again gathered his national security team.

They had been right about Putin’s intentions. And they had managed to secure unity among allies and even Republicans behind sanctions. But all along, the decision about whether to go to war was Putin’s alone. Despite all of the efforts, it looked like war was inevitable.

At the meeting Sunday, the discussion shifted to new questions: whether to send more troops to NATO countries; how to support a Ukrainian resistance when Russia invades; how to deal with a flood of refugees; and how to manage the economic consequences of sanctions in Europe and the United States.

“The risk for the United States is that the allies don’t stay together,” said Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the CIA and the Defense Department under President Barack Obama. “This crisis and this mode of a standoff with Russia is going to be around for months and years, not days and weeks.”

Wooing Allies

Meetings with the leaders of America’s closest allies began days after the secret October briefings, during Biden’s trip to Rome for a meeting of the leaders of the Group of 20 nations. There, he convened the biggest NATO members known as “the quint”: the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

The president and his counterparts began to sketch out the response to Russia’s aggression that day in Rome. But soon, Biden’s plan to widen the circle of trust on Ukraine was put in place, officials said.

In a series of secure video meetings from the White House, the president and his national security team started sharing highly classified information with a larger group, including Poland, Romania, and the presidents of the European Union and Canada, as well as the top officials at NATO.

Not everyone was convinced.

On Nov. 17, Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, travelled to NATO headquarters for a key presentation. Although the United States has sometimes baulked at sharing its best intelligence with the entire NATO alliance, worried about Russian moles in various governments, in this case the United States had already delivered a broad warning to Russia about what it knew. The briefing marked a significant shift in the allied view, officials said.

European and U.S. intelligence officials said that Putin initially believed Europe and the United States would remain divided and unwilling to impose strong sanctions, particularly in the defense of Ukraine. He thought that he could build up a significant force and then either attack Ukraine or extract concessions from Kyiv, without much unified opposition from Europe, the officials said.

“According to our assessment, at the end of summer, Putin likely gave instructions to prepare for military options against Ukraine,” said Mikk Marran, the director general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service. “And in autumn 2021, we detected the attitude of President Putin: He felt the West was weak and the issue of Ukraine needed to be fixed.”

In fact, the alliance had its shaky moments. Four years of President Donald Trump’s raging against NATO had taken its toll. And Biden had angered some key European allies by what they described as a failure to consult with them about the details of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. A spat with France over a nuclear submarine deal did not help.

But Putin’s assessment ended up being a miscalculation, according to U.S. and European officials. As the United States shared more intelligence both with NATO and individual allies, the positions hardened against Russia. The Eastern European intelligence official said that Putin’s timetable for an attack might well have been pushed back in the face of the unexpected cohesion among the allies.

“I have been in constant contact with our allies in Europe, with Ukrainians,” Biden told reporters in early December.

He said that he was putting together what he believed would be “the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr. Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he may do.

“But that’s in play right now,” he added.

Going Public

By late November, Biden knew it was time to talk with Putin again. The Russian force was still growing and the threat of war loomed.

But the president and his aides were worried that the Russian president would use a conversation as another opportunity to manipulate public sentiment by lying about the reality playing out in the frigid areas along the Ukrainian border.

As he prepared for the call with Putin, Biden approved the public release of an unclassified intelligence document showing the positioning of what officials said at the time could eventually grow to be a huge force along the border, including heavy armor, artillery and other equipment.

“Our theory has been that putting true information into the public domain, which was bearing out in real time because everybody can see what they’re actually doing, was the best way to prevent the Russians and what they always do, which is to try to control the narrative with disinformation,” a senior administration official recalled recently.

The idea was a risky one. Weaponizing information about Russian plans could make the administration look like it was stoking war rather than trying to prevent one.

In the past, intelligence agencies had blocked American proposals to release information, which some policymakers thought of as an overly cautious blanket rejection. But in this case, Burns, a career diplomat, supported a targeted strategy to declassify and release information, if the sources and methods could be protected. Haines also backed the strategy.

The Dec. 3 document became the first of a series of efforts to declassify intelligence about Russian plans by the United States and Britain, which would come to include details of a Russian sabotage campaign, a coup plot, an elaborate effort to use a faked video to create a pretext for invasion and other false flag operations plotted by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU.

Biden and Putin spoke by secure video link for an hour and 59 minutes on the morning of Dec. 7, just three days after the declassified document went public. According to U.S. officials, the president offered Putin a choice: agree to diplomacy or risk severe economic and political consequences from the sanctions that would be imposed after an invasion of Ukraine.

In some ways, Biden was distinctly prepared for the moment. Having visited Ukraine a half-dozen times over the past decade, he knows the country better than any other U.S. president. His foreign policy team is made up of what are often called “Atlanticists,” who have spent their lives thinking about European security. (Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, grew up in Paris.)

Aides also said Biden’s long history with Putin made him less susceptible to the Russian president’s tactics. In conversations about Ukraine, officials said that Putin often liked to expound for long periods of time on minute details of the Minsk agreement, a complicated years-old effort at diplomacy with Ukraine, hoping to confuse the situation.

Mobilizing Troops

On Christmas Day, the Russian military publicly announced the withdrawal of 10,000 troops from Ukraine’s border, calling it proof that Putin had no intentions of invading his neighbor any time soon.

Inside the White House, the president and his team were not buying it.

Intelligence officials had seen repeated instances in which the Russians would move a battalion tactical group close to the border, set up the infrastructure necessary for a rapid invasion, and then move the troops back out, leaving a shell that could be used by other battalions, the Russian national guard or other military forces loyal to Putin.

The movement of troops back and forth was not evidence of a retreat, officials said. It was evidence of the opposite: preparations for an invasion of Ukraine.

But Biden had agreed to send Blinken and others for a week of intense diplomacy in Europe the week of Jan. 10. Those talks culminated in discussions in Vienna on Thursday, Jan. 13, with the goal of convincing Putin not to risk crippling sanctions by sending his forces into Ukraine.

The next day, tens of thousands of Russian troops started pouring into Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbor, for what Russia called joint military exercises.

On Jan. 18, the administration ratcheted up their public information campaign with a State Department briefing for reporters on Belarus, revealing the extent of the Russian activity there.

The next day, hours before Biden held a two-hour news conference in the East Room of the White House, he met virtually from the Situation Room with a half dozen senators — Democrats and Republicans — who had just returned from Ukraine. Unlike his many clashes with Republicans over domestic policy, Biden had secured largely bipartisan support.

The news conference did not go well. In response to questions, Biden suggested the allies might not respond to what he called a “minor incursion” by Russia. His team spent the later part of the day quickly reassuring President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, and allies that any incursion — no matter how small — would trigger punishing sanctions.

For months, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had convened twice weekly meetings with top civilian and military leaders to hone the military’s options. The meetings, called “Op/Policy Sync” sessions, focused in part on one of Austin’s three “north stars” or guiding strategic principles: avoiding a direct confrontation in or near Ukraine between Russia and the United States, the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

By the end of January, however, both Austin, a retired four-star Army general known for his cautious judgments, and Gen. Mark A. Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a military historian who carries with him a map of Ukraine marked with tactical details, no longer saw any possible ambiguity in what more than 100,000 Russian forces intended to do. These weren’t just training exercises, as the Russians insisted.

“Mr. President, we’ve entered a period of unambiguous warning,” Austin told Biden, according to a senior Pentagon official. “Putin is putting his troops in position to attack, and it’s now time to be in position to respond rapidly.”

In a meeting on Jan. 22 at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Biden with several options that would shift U.S. military assets much closer to Putin’s doorstep, administration officials said.

The options included sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorated, officials said.

A week later, on Feb. 2, the Pentagon announced the first group of nearly 5,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, would deploy to Poland to reassure a pivotal ally on NATO’s eastern flank.

The Endgame

For months, Biden had tried to avoid a war in Europe. But now, with Russian forces on the move, the president and his aides have new challenges.

After Biden and his top aides predicted for weeks that Putin would likely launch an all-out assault on Ukraine, a more limited Russian incursion could undercut the resolve of the alliance that Biden has assembled.

Ben Rhodes, who served as a deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration, said Putin might not immediately advance into the rest of Ukraine, avoiding the scenes of mass refugees and major battles that officials had predicted.

“It’s easier to get leaders to do things that are hard if the more dramatic consequences are evident to everybody,” he said. “You could be in a strange window of time when there’s disagreement.”

A slow-moving invasion, in which Putin’s forces remain in the disputed, separatist-held areas for weeks or months, could also strain the bipartisan support that had coalesced around Biden’s tough approach in the months leading up to Monday’s actions by the Russian leader.

Some Republicans lashed out immediately, urging the president to move more quickly to impose sanctions. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote on Twitter that Putin’s moves Monday amounted to “a declaration of war against the people of Ukraine.”

He added: “His decision should immediately be met with forceful sanctions to destroy the ruble and crush the Russian oil and gas sector.”

And now that it appears that the Russian president is ignoring those threats, Biden risks being accused by Republicans and other critics of having failed to do enough to prevent an invasion in the first place. Rhodes said that criticism would be unfair.

“Sanctions can impose a cost and make things more difficult for Putin,” Rhodes said. “But they can’t shake his calculus entirely.”

In a series of top-secret meetings in October, President Joe Biden’s national security team presented grim intelligence that would soon trigger a fierce effort to prevent what could become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

In a series of top-secret meetings in October, President Joe Biden’s national security team presented grim intelligence that would soon trigger a fierce effort to prevent what could become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was preparing to invade Ukraine, top intelligence and military officials told Biden. Gathering each morning in the Oval Office for the global threat assessment known as the President’s Daily Brief, they described satellite images of Russian forces methodically advancing toward Ukraine’s border. Not only did the United States have images of troops moving into position, it also had the Russian military’s plans for a campaign against Ukraine — elements of which had already begun. At one of the morning meetings, Biden dispatched William J. Burns, the CIA director, to Moscow with a message for Putin: We know what you’re planning to do. Stopping him would be a challenge. Many of America’s closest allies were sceptical that Putin — a master of disinformation — would actually invade. The use of U.S. military force against Russia was off the table, so the allies would have to threaten Putin with economic pain so severe it would also have consequences in Europe and the United States. And it was far from certain that Republicans in Congress would back whatever the administration did. On Monday, after delivering a grievance-filled speech attacking Ukraine’s sovereignty, Putin ordered troops into two Russia-backed separatist regions in the country. But it remains unclear how far, or quickly, the Russian military will advance. And by day’s end, the United States and its allies imposed only limited sanctions, reserving the full might of their response for moves that Putin might yet make. The White House acknowledged from the start that its campaign to stop Putin might not actually prevent Russia from invading Ukraine. But at the very least, White House officials say, Biden exposed Putin and his true intentions, which helped unite, at least for now, the at-times fractious NATO alliance. Over the course of 3 1/2 months, Biden made three critical decisions about how to handle Russia’s provocations, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior administration officials and others who requested anonymity to discuss confidential meetings. Early on, the president approved a recommendation to share intelligence far more broadly with allies than was typical, officials said. The idea was to avoid disagreements about tough economic sanctions by ensuring that everyone knew what the United States knew about Putin’s actions. Biden also gave the green light for an unprecedented public information campaign against Putin. With the support of his top intelligence officials — and with a promise to protect the intelligence agencies’ “sources and methods” — the president allowed a wave of public releases aimed at preventing Putin from employing his usual denials to divide his adversaries. And when it became clear this year that Putin was continuing to build up forces at Ukraine’s border, the president approved sending Ukraine more weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, and deploying more troops to other countries in Eastern Europe as a show of solidarity with Ukraine and to reassure nervous allies on NATO’s eastern flank. On Sunday morning, nearly four months after those meetings, Biden once again gathered his national security team. They had been right about Putin’s intentions. And they had managed to secure unity among allies and even Republicans behind sanctions. But all along, the decision about whether to go to war was Putin’s alone. Despite all of the efforts, it looked like war was inevitable. At the meeting Sunday, the discussion shifted to new questions: whether to send more troops to NATO countries; how to support a Ukrainian resistance when Russia invades; how to deal with a flood of refugees; and how to manage the economic consequences of sanctions in Europe and the United States. “The risk for the United States is that the allies don’t stay together,” said Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the CIA and the Defense Department under President Barack Obama. “This crisis and this mode of a standoff with Russia is going to be around for months and years, not days and weeks.” Wooing Allies Meetings with the leaders of America’s closest allies began days after the secret October briefings, during Biden’s trip to Rome for a meeting of the leaders of the Group of 20 nations. There, he convened the biggest NATO members known as “the quint”: the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy. The president and his counterparts began to sketch out the response to Russia’s aggression that day in Rome. But soon, Biden’s plan to widen the circle of trust on Ukraine was put in place, officials said. In a series of secure video meetings from the White House, the president and his national security team started sharing highly classified information with a larger group, including Poland, Romania, and the presidents of the European Union and Canada, as well as the top officials at NATO. Not everyone was convinced. On Nov. 17, Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, travelled to NATO headquarters for a key presentation. Although the United States has sometimes baulked at sharing its best intelligence with the entire NATO alliance, worried about Russian moles in various governments, in this case the United States had already delivered a broad warning to Russia about what it knew. The briefing marked a significant shift in the allied view, officials said. European and U.S. intelligence officials said that Putin initially believed Europe and the United States would remain divided and unwilling to impose strong sanctions, particularly in the defense of Ukraine. He thought that he could build up a significant force and then either attack Ukraine or extract concessions from Kyiv, without much unified opposition from Europe, the officials said. “According to our assessment, at the end of summer, Putin likely gave instructions to prepare for military options against Ukraine,” said Mikk Marran, the director general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service. “And in autumn 2021, we detected the attitude of President Putin: He felt the West was weak and the issue of Ukraine needed to be fixed.” In fact, the alliance had its shaky moments. Four years of President Donald Trump’s raging against NATO had taken its toll. And Biden had angered some key European allies by what they described as a failure to consult with them about the details of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. A spat with France over a nuclear submarine deal did not help. But Putin’s assessment ended up being a miscalculation, according to U.S. and European officials. As the United States shared more intelligence both with NATO and individual allies, the positions hardened against Russia. The Eastern European intelligence official said that Putin’s timetable for an attack might well have been pushed back in the face of the unexpected cohesion among the allies. “I have been in constant contact with our allies in Europe, with Ukrainians,” Biden told reporters in early December. He said that he was putting together what he believed would be “the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr. Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he may do. “But that’s in play right now,” he added. Going Public By late November, Biden knew it was time to talk with Putin again. The Russian force was still growing and the threat of war loomed. But the president and his aides were worried that the Russian president would use a conversation as another opportunity to manipulate public sentiment by lying about the reality playing out in the frigid areas along the Ukrainian border. As he prepared for the call with Putin, Biden approved the public release of an unclassified intelligence document showing the positioning of what officials said at the time could eventually grow to be a huge force along the border, including heavy armor, artillery and other equipment. “Our theory has been that putting true information into the public domain, which was bearing out in real time because everybody can see what they’re actually doing, was the best way to prevent the Russians and what they always do, which is to try to control the narrative with disinformation,” a senior administration official recalled recently. The idea was a risky one. Weaponizing information about Russian plans could make the administration look like it was stoking war rather than trying to prevent one. In the past, intelligence agencies had blocked American proposals to release information, which some policymakers thought of as an overly cautious blanket rejection. But in this case, Burns, a career diplomat, supported a targeted strategy to declassify and release information, if the sources and methods could be protected. Haines also backed the strategy. The Dec. 3 document became the first of a series of efforts to declassify intelligence about Russian plans by the United States and Britain, which would come to include details of a Russian sabotage campaign, a coup plot, an elaborate effort to use a faked video to create a pretext for invasion and other false flag operations plotted by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Biden and Putin spoke by secure video link for an hour and 59 minutes on the morning of Dec. 7, just three days after the declassified document went public. According to U.S. officials, the president offered Putin a choice: agree to diplomacy or risk severe economic and political consequences from the sanctions that would be imposed after an invasion of Ukraine. In some ways, Biden was distinctly prepared for the moment. Having visited Ukraine a half-dozen times over the past decade, he knows the country better than any other U.S. president. His foreign policy team is made up of what are often called “Atlanticists,” who have spent their lives thinking about European security. (Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, grew up in Paris.) Aides also said Biden’s long history with Putin made him less susceptible to the Russian president’s tactics. In conversations about Ukraine, officials said that Putin often liked to expound for long periods of time on minute details of the Minsk agreement, a complicated years-old effort at diplomacy with Ukraine, hoping to confuse the situation. Mobilizing Troops On Christmas Day, the Russian military publicly announced the withdrawal of 10,000 troops from Ukraine’s border, calling it proof that Putin had no intentions of invading his neighbor any time soon. Inside the White House, the president and his team were not buying it. Intelligence officials had seen repeated instances in which the Russians would move a battalion tactical group close to the border, set up the infrastructure necessary for a rapid invasion, and then move the troops back out, leaving a shell that could be used by other battalions, the Russian national guard or other military forces loyal to Putin. The movement of troops back and forth was not evidence of a retreat, officials said. It was evidence of the opposite: preparations for an invasion of Ukraine. But Biden had agreed to send Blinken and others for a week of intense diplomacy in Europe the week of Jan. 10. Those talks culminated in discussions in Vienna on Thursday, Jan. 13, with the goal of convincing Putin not to risk crippling sanctions by sending his forces into Ukraine. The next day, tens of thousands of Russian troops started pouring into Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbor, for what Russia called joint military exercises. On Jan. 18, the administration ratcheted up their public information campaign with a State Department briefing for reporters on Belarus, revealing the extent of the Russian activity there. The next day, hours before Biden held a two-hour news conference in the East Room of the White House, he met virtually from the Situation Room with a half dozen senators — Democrats and Republicans — who had just returned from Ukraine. Unlike his many clashes with Republicans over domestic policy, Biden had secured largely bipartisan support. The news conference did not go well. In response to questions, Biden suggested the allies might not respond to what he called a “minor incursion” by Russia. His team spent the later part of the day quickly reassuring President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, and allies that any incursion — no matter how small — would trigger punishing sanctions. For months, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had convened twice weekly meetings with top civilian and military leaders to hone the military’s options. The meetings, called “Op/Policy Sync” sessions, focused in part on one of Austin’s three “north stars” or guiding strategic principles: avoiding a direct confrontation in or near Ukraine between Russia and the United States, the world’s two largest nuclear powers. By the end of January, however, both Austin, a retired four-star Army general known for his cautious judgments, and Gen. Mark A. Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a military historian who carries with him a map of Ukraine marked with tactical details, no longer saw any possible ambiguity in what more than 100,000 Russian forces intended to do. These weren’t just training exercises, as the Russians insisted. “Mr. President, we’ve entered a period of unambiguous warning,” Austin told Biden, according to a senior Pentagon official. “Putin is putting his troops in position to attack, and it’s now time to be in position to respond rapidly.” In a meeting on Jan. 22 at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Biden with several options that would shift U.S. military assets much closer to Putin’s doorstep, administration officials said. The options included sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorated, officials said. A week later, on Feb. 2, the Pentagon announced the first group of nearly 5,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, would deploy to Poland to reassure a pivotal ally on NATO’s eastern flank. The Endgame For months, Biden had tried to avoid a war in Europe. But now, with Russian forces on the move, the president and his aides have new challenges. After Biden and his top aides predicted for weeks that Putin would likely launch an all-out assault on Ukraine, a more limited Russian incursion could undercut the resolve of the alliance that Biden has assembled. Ben Rhodes, who served as a deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration, said Putin might not immediately advance into the rest of Ukraine, avoiding the scenes of mass refugees and major battles that officials had predicted. “It’s easier to get leaders to do things that are hard if the more dramatic consequences are evident to everybody,” he said. “You could be in a strange window of time when there’s disagreement.” A slow-moving invasion, in which Putin’s forces remain in the disputed, separatist-held areas for weeks or months, could also strain the bipartisan support that had coalesced around Biden’s tough approach in the months leading up to Monday’s actions by the Russian leader. Some Republicans lashed out immediately, urging the president to move more quickly to impose sanctions. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote on Twitter that Putin’s moves Monday amounted to “a declaration of war against the people of Ukraine.” He added: “His decision should immediately be met with forceful sanctions to destroy the ruble and crush the Russian oil and gas sector.” And now that it appears that the Russian president is ignoring those threats, Biden risks being accused by Republicans and other critics of having failed to do enough to prevent an invasion in the first place. Rhodes said that criticism would be unfair. “Sanctions can impose a cost and make things more difficult for Putin,” Rhodes said. “But they can’t shake his calculus entirely.”

Wooing allies, publicising Putin’s plans: Inside Biden’s race to prevent war

As tensions mount over the Ukraine crisis and Russia's latest provocations, new Russian troop activity was reported on the border. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Minsk agreement does not exist.

Russian President Vladimir Putin asks Ukraine to renounce NATO bid amid heightened tensions

Russia's recognition of Ukraine's rebel regions has drawn differing views within Ukraine. Kyiv residents have refused to accept it while Donetsk celebrated the move.

Kyiv residents express shock, Donetsk celebrates Putin's recognition of Ukraine's two regions

After weeks of warnings to de-escalate military maneuvers in eastern Ukraine, US has now imposed a series of limited sanctions on the two Russian-backed areas in eastern Ukraine's Donbass region. The move came after Putin signed a presidential decree recognizing the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.

Biden condemns Putin's recognition of Ukraine breakaway regions, now imposes sanctions

Russian president Vladimir Putin recognized Ukraine's breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent. He said that he was confident that Russian citizens would support the decision through this move. On more on this we are joined by Dr Kadira Pethyagoda, International Affairs expert to shed more light on this.

Putin recognizes Ukraine's breakaway regions of Donetsk, Lugansk as independent, a call for concern?

The Pentagon has claimed that an attack on Ukraine may happen today, but there is still time for diplomacy.

This development occurs at a time when world leaders are renewing diplomatic efforts in the hopes of averting a Russian invasion of Ukraine.&nbsp;

According to the White House, President Joe Biden has agreed to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in principle if he refrains from attacking his neighbour, which US officials believe is becoming increasingly likely.&nbsp;

When the military drills in Belarus, which is located on Ukraine's northern border, were set to end on Sunday, Russian forces were scheduled to return home.

However, Moscow and Minsk have announced that Russian forces will remain in the country permanently.

The Russian forces' prolonged presence in Belarus has generated fears that they will be dispatched to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, a metropolis of 3 million people less than three hours' drive from the Belarus border.&nbsp;

According to US sources, more than 150,000 Russian troops are massed near Ukraine's borders.

Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's and the Kremlin's claims that some troops have started to evacuate, Biden informed reporters that more Russian military have moved in, contradicting Moscow's claims.&nbsp;

It's still unclear whether Putin intends to strike his former Soviet neighbour.

Russia has denied any invasion intentions and reaffirmed its insistence that the US and NATO refuse to admit Ukraine to the armed alliance.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

The Pentagon has claimed that an attack on Ukraine may happen today, but there is still time for diplomacy. This development occurs at a time when world leaders are renewing diplomatic efforts in the hopes of averting a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Pentagon has claimed that an attack on Ukraine may happen today, but there is still time for diplomacy. This development occurs at a time when world leaders are renewing diplomatic efforts in the hopes of averting a Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to the White House, President Joe Biden has agreed to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in principle if he refrains from attacking his neighbour, which US officials believe is becoming increasingly likely. When the military drills in Belarus, which is located on Ukraine's northern border, were set to end on Sunday, Russian forces were scheduled to return home. However, Moscow and Minsk have announced that Russian forces will remain in the country permanently. The Russian forces' prolonged presence in Belarus has generated fears that they will be dispatched to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, a metropolis of 3 million people less than three hours' drive from the Belarus border. According to US sources, more than 150,000 Russian troops are massed near Ukraine's borders. Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's and the Kremlin's claims that some troops have started to evacuate, Biden informed reporters that more Russian military have moved in, contradicting Moscow's claims. It's still unclear whether Putin intends to strike his former Soviet neighbour. Russia has denied any invasion intentions and reaffirmed its insistence that the US and NATO refuse to admit Ukraine to the armed alliance. (With inputs from agencies)

Pentagon says attack on Ukraine could happen today, but there is still time for diplomacy

Western powers have now stepped up their diplomatic efforts to try and see if an invasion by Russia into Ukraine can be averted. France has held a series of talks with all parties involved in a bid to try and de-escalate the rising hostilities.

France proposes Ukraine summit; Biden, Putin to de-escalate tensions

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that he is mulling the idea of recognising independence of Ukraine's two breakaway regions. He said that leaders of these territories in eastern Ukraine have appealed him to do so.

"Our goal is to listen to our colleagues and determine our next steps in this direction, bearing in mind both the appeals of the leaders of the DNR (Donetsk People's Republic) and LNR (Lugansk People's Republic) to recognise their independence," Putin said while opening a televised security council meeting.&nbsp;

He said that tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine posed a threat to Moscow.

"The use of Ukraine as an instrument of confrontation with our country poses a serious, very big threat to us," Putin said adding that Moscow's priority was "not confrontation, but security".

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/ukraine-russia-crisis-kyiv-denies-its-saboteurs-crossed-into-moscow-455109">Ukraine-Russia crisis: Kyiv denies its 'saboteurs' crossed into Moscow</a>

The Russian parliament has also asked Putin to recognise the pro-Moscow separatist territories, which declared themselves independent of Kyiv's rule after Ukraine's 2014 pro-EU revolution.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/to-be-killed-or-sent-to-camps-us-claims-russia-plans-to-target-dissidents-in-ukraine-455031">'To be killed or sent to camps': US claims Russia plans to target dissidents in Ukraine</a>

Calls for recognition from the rebels came as the Ukraine crisis escalated sharply on Monday, with fears mounting that Russia is paving the way for an all-out invasion of its western neighbour.

"I ask you to recognise the sovereignty and independence of the Lugansk People's Republic," separatist Leonid Pasechnik said in a video aired on Russian state television.&nbsp;

Denis Pushilin, the rebel head of the Donetsk People's Republic, made a similar appeal.&nbsp;

"On behalf of all the people of the Donetsk People's Republic, we ask you to recognise the Donetsk People's Republic as an independent, democratic legal and social state," Pushilin said.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that he is mulling the idea of recognising independence of Ukraine's two breakaway regions. He said that leaders of these territories in eastern Ukraine have appealed him to do so.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that he is mulling the idea of recognising independence of Ukraine's two breakaway regions. He said that leaders of these territories in eastern Ukraine have appealed him to do so. "Our goal is to listen to our colleagues and determine our next steps in this direction, bearing in mind both the appeals of the leaders of the DNR (Donetsk People's Republic) and LNR (Lugansk People's Republic) to recognise their independence," Putin said while opening a televised security council meeting. He said that tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine posed a threat to Moscow. "The use of Ukraine as an instrument of confrontation with our country poses a serious, very big threat to us," Putin said adding that Moscow's priority was "not confrontation, but security". Also Read | Ukraine-Russia crisis: Kyiv denies its 'saboteurs' crossed into Moscow The Russian parliament has also asked Putin to recognise the pro-Moscow separatist territories, which declared themselves independent of Kyiv's rule after Ukraine's 2014 pro-EU revolution. Also Read | 'To be killed or sent to camps': US claims Russia plans to target dissidents in Ukraine Calls for recognition from the rebels came as the Ukraine crisis escalated sharply on Monday, with fears mounting that Russia is paving the way for an all-out invasion of its western neighbour. "I ask you to recognise the sovereignty and independence of the Lugansk People's Republic," separatist Leonid Pasechnik said in a video aired on Russian state television. Denis Pushilin, the rebel head of the Donetsk People's Republic, made a similar appeal. "On behalf of all the people of the Donetsk People's Republic, we ask you to recognise the Donetsk People's Republic as an independent, democratic legal and social state," Pushilin said. (With inputs from agencies)

Putin may consider recognising independence of Ukraine's breakaway regions

U.S President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin may finally meet amid the ongoing tensions with Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron helped in brokering potential talks. Will the potential meeting between two leaders resolve the Russia-Ukraine crisis?

Will Joe Biden & Vladimir Putin meeting resolve Russia-Ukraine issue?

In a tribute to the 'Heavenly Hundred', Prayers for peace pour in amid Russia-Ukraine tensions. Former President lays flowers at the memorial.

A tribute to the 'Heavenly Hundred': Prayers for peace pour in amid Russia-Ukraine tensions

Amid the ongoing war tensions between Ukraine and Russia, India issued an advisory for Indian nationals living in Ukraine. Students & non-essential workers are advised to leave.

Countries rush to bring back citizens: India issues an advisory for Indian nationals in Ukraine

France and Israel have asked their citizens to leave Ukraine as tensions rise. France is the latest country to ask its citizens to leave Ukraine. Meanwhile, NATO has relocated its staff from Kyiv to Lviv.

Russia-Ukraine tensions: Israel PM urges citizens to 'come home'

Russian President Vladimir Putin informed French President Emmanuel Macron that Russian troops would depart Belarus after the military drills were completed.

Western countries will no doubt attach little value to that assurance, given that Russian troops were expected to leave today, until it was announced otherwise. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/putin-tells-macron-plans-to-withdraw-troops-from-belarus-french-presidency-454886">Also read | Ukraine crisis: Belarus says Russian forces to remain for more drills</a>

According to Reuters, the two presidents argued about who was to blame for the unrest in eastern Ukraine during their phone chat today, citing a French presidential adviser.

Watch | Gravitas Plus | Explained: The Russia-Ukraine crisis

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-plus-explained-the-russia-ukraine-crisis-454859/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

According to the French official, Macron blamed Russian separatists and Putin on Ukraine.&nbsp; 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/russia-planning-biggest-war-since-1945-says-boris-johnson-454778">Also read | Russia planning biggest war since 1945, says Boris Johnson</a>

Meanwhile, Belarus' defence ministry has said that Russian forces stationed in Belarus for military drills will remain in the nation forever, fueling fears that Moscow is contemplating an invasion of Ukraine.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

Russian President Vladimir Putin informed French President Emmanuel Macron that Russian troops would depart Belarus after the military drills were completed. Western countries will no doubt attach little value to that assurance, given that Russian troops were expected to leave today, until it was announced otherwise.

Russian President Vladimir Putin informed French President Emmanuel Macron that Russian troops would depart Belarus after the military drills were completed. Western countries will no doubt attach little value to that assurance, given that Russian troops were expected to leave today, until it was announced otherwise. Also read | Ukraine crisis: Belarus says Russian forces to remain for more drills According to Reuters, the two presidents argued about who was to blame for the unrest in eastern Ukraine during their phone chat today, citing a French presidential adviser. Watch | Gravitas Plus | Explained: The Russia-Ukraine crisis According to the French official, Macron blamed Russian separatists and Putin on Ukraine. Also read | Russia planning biggest war since 1945, says Boris Johnson Meanwhile, Belarus' defence ministry has said that Russian forces stationed in Belarus for military drills will remain in the nation forever, fueling fears that Moscow is contemplating an invasion of Ukraine. (With inputs from agencies)

Putin tells Macron plans to withdraw troops from Belarus: French presidency

The world has its eyes on eastern Europe as fears of a Russian invasion continue to grow for months. Russia has amassed over a hundred thousand troops around Ukraine. Meanwhile, Demonstrators take to the streets against NATO.

Demonstrators take to streets against NATO, demand 'Implement Ukraine-Minsk treaty'

Russia has launched massive nuclear drills amid the ongoing issue with the Ukraine crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin is overseeing the military drills.

Russia, Belarus extend drills: A sharp increase in shelling reported in Ukraine

The story of the Ukraine-Russia crisis does not begin in 2021, or 2014, It begins in the 9th century. There was a time when the two countries were one. There was a time when Ukraine gave its nuclear arsenal to Russia. Palki Sharma Upadhyay will tell you why Putin wants Ukraine.

Gravitas Plus | Explained: The Russia-Ukraine crisis

The US Vice President Kamala Harris at the Munich security conference warns of a possible war as tensions mount over the Ukraine crisis.

US Vice President Harris at Munich conference: 'We believe Putin has decided'

India's advice for nationals in Ukraine: 'Students & non-essential workers advised to leave'

France has asked its citizens to leave Ukraine as tensions rise. France is the latest country to ask its citizens to leave Ukraine. Meanwhile, NATO has relocated its staff from Kyiv to Lviv.

Russia maintains 'no plans to invade' as tensions mount over Ukraine crisis

There has been a rise in shelling in eastern Ukraine amid the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. This comes at a time when people were asked to evacuate the region.

Tensions flare in Eastern Ukraine: Sharp increase in shelling reported

On the Day 2 of the Munich Security Conference, the West urged Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine. The world leaders converge as tensions spike. However, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky questioned NATO's intentions.

Ukraine President Zelensky calls out NATO's 'Open Door' policy at the Munich Security Conference

Western powers should drop their policy of “appeasement” towards Moscow, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a security forum in Munich on Saturday, as concerns grow over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The three-day Munich Security Conference (MSC) kicked off in the Bavarian capital on Friday, with a major focus scheduled to be on the Western strategy to counter&nbsp;the Ukraine crisis.

Notably absent were the official representatives from Russia.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday afternoon, Zelensky warned that the threat of sanctions won’t work if Russia starts bombing Ukraine.

Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. We have no weapons. And no security ... But we have a right –&nbsp;a right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to one ensuring security and peace," he said at the gathering in Munich.

Citing continued warnings from the US of imminent Russian aggression, Zelensky said that in order to “really help Ukraine, Western countries do not need to constantly talk only about the dates of a possible invasion.”

“We will defend our land on February 16, March 1, and December 31. We need other dates much more. And everyone understands perfectly well which ones,” he asserted.

He emphasised that the only thing “we want is to have peace.”

The president also called for a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in order to avoid any conflict.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/russia-invading-ukraine-will-invite-bolstered-nato-on-europes-eastern-flank-harris-454615" hreflang="en">Kamala Harris warns Russia of huge financial costs if it invades Ukraine</a>

“I do not know what the Russian president wants. For this reason, I propose that we meet,” he said.

Notably, Zelensky was warned not to travel to Munich over fears that Russia may launch an attack in his absence.

Zelensky also said that he wants a “clear” timeframe for when Ukraine can join the NATO alliance.

Questioning why the EU avoids questions over Ukraine’s membership status, Zelensky asked, “Doesn't Ukraine deserve direct, honest answers?”

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/ballistic-cruise-missiles-in-exercises-russia-flexes-muscles-as-us-says-moscow-poised-to-strike-454638">Ballistic, cruise missiles in exercises: Russia flexes muscles amid tensions</a>

"This also applies to NATO. We are told the door is open. But for now, no outsiders are allowed in,” he said while addressing world leaders in Munich, Kyiv-based news agency Interfax-Ukraine reported.&nbsp;

Notably, one of the security guarantees proposed by Russia to NATO was not to permit Ukraine to join the alliance.

Russia had asked NATO not to expand any further eastward, claiming the organization's proximity to its borders threaten its national security.

(With inputs from agencies)

Western powers should drop their policy of “appeasement” towards Moscow, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a security forum in Munich on Saturday, as concerns grow over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Western powers should drop their policy of “appeasement” towards Moscow, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a security forum in Munich on Saturday, as concerns grow over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The three-day Munich Security Conference (MSC) kicked off in the Bavarian capital on Friday, with a major focus scheduled to be on the Western strategy to counter the Ukraine crisis. Notably absent were the official representatives from Russia. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday afternoon, Zelensky warned that the threat of sanctions won’t work if Russia starts bombing Ukraine. Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. We have no weapons. And no security ... But we have a right – a right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to one ensuring security and peace," he said at the gathering in Munich. Citing continued warnings from the US of imminent Russian aggression, Zelensky said that in order to “really help Ukraine, Western countries do not need to constantly talk only about the dates of a possible invasion.” “We will defend our land on February 16, March 1, and December 31. We need other dates much more. And everyone understands perfectly well which ones,” he asserted. He emphasised that the only thing “we want is to have peace.” The president also called for a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in order to avoid any conflict. Also read | Kamala Harris warns Russia of huge financial costs if it invades Ukraine “I do not know what the Russian president wants. For this reason, I propose that we meet,” he said. Notably, Zelensky was warned not to travel to Munich over fears that Russia may launch an attack in his absence. Zelensky also said that he wants a “clear” timeframe for when Ukraine can join the NATO alliance. Questioning why the EU avoids questions over Ukraine’s membership status, Zelensky asked, “Doesn't Ukraine deserve direct, honest answers?” Also read | Ballistic, cruise missiles in exercises: Russia flexes muscles amid tensions "This also applies to NATO. We are told the door is open. But for now, no outsiders are allowed in,” he said while addressing world leaders in Munich, Kyiv-based news agency Interfax-Ukraine reported. Notably, one of the security guarantees proposed by Russia to NATO was not to permit Ukraine to join the alliance. Russia had asked NATO not to expand any further eastward, claiming the organization's proximity to its borders threaten its national security. (With inputs from agencies)

West must drop ‘appeasement policy’ towards Russia: Ukraine President Zelensky

On the Day 2 of the Munich Security Conference, the West urged Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine. The world leaders converge as tensions spike.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky questions NATO's intentions at Munich Security Conference

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mocks West's war prediction at Munich Security Conference

Russia launches strategic Nuclear exercises

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