The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine:
- White House says President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy “agreed on the need to continue pursuing diplomacy and deterrence in response to Russia’s military build-up.”
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said U.S. cannot predict whether Russia might invade this week or after the Beijing Olympics, but major military action is possible.
- The United States has closed its embassy in Kyiv and has evacuated most of its staff.
- Australia and Canada have announced they are relocating their embassies to Lviv, which is also home to a Ukrainian military base.
- Biden, in a call Saturday with President Vladimir Putin, again warned that an invasion of Ukraine would bring “swift and severe” consequences.
- The Kremlin said the ideas Biden offered to diffuse the crisis were not new and did not address its concerns.
- The U.S. State Department has issued a travel advisory warning Americans to get out of Ukraine and to avoid travel to the country.
- The West is demanding that Russia pull its troops and weapons from Ukraine’s border, while Moscow is pushing for NATO to curtail its operations in Eastern and central Europe. Russia also maintains that the Western defensive alliance should reject Ukraine’s NATO membership bid, a move the United States calls a “non-starter.”
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.