Ukraine – The summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin will take place

Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden have agreed to meet at a summit on Monday, with French President Emmanuel Macron proposing that no invasion of Ukraine take place. Given immediately.

“Each of the presidents, Biden and Putin, has accepted the policy of such a summit,” he said. Was contactedIndicates that the talks will then be extended to “all stakeholders” in the Ukrainian crisis.

But the French president warned that the summit could be held “only if Russia does not invade Ukraine.” The White House has confirmed that Joe Biden will meet with Vladimir Putin “if an invasion does not take place,” with no comments from the Kremlin at first.

The United States is “committed to pursuing diplomacy until an invasion begins,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. “President Biden has agreed in principle to a meeting with President Putin (…) if an invasion does not take place,” he continued.

“If Russia chooses war instead, we are prepared to have quick and drastic consequences,” he said, adding that “Russia now seems to be preparing for a full-scale offensive against Ukraine.”

Elysee said the content of the summit would be prepared during a meeting scheduled for next Thursday by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. The announcement comes as Russia and Ukraine continue to blame each other for the new fighting in Ukraine’s separatist east.

After a visit to Moscow in early February, Emmanuel Macron snatched this diplomatic victory after two rounds of talks with Vladimir Putin on Sunday. His second meeting with Vladimir Putin took place in the evening, after the French president spoke with his US President Joe Biden, confirming his role as mediator between the two former Cold War enemy forces.

According to Westerners, this surprising announcement contradicts warnings about Moscow’s immediate intervention, as Anthony Blinkan reiterated on Sunday that Russia was going to occupy Ukraine.

However, images from the US satellite film company Maxar show a new deployment of Russian troops and military equipment on the Ukrainian border. These new photos, taken on Sunday, show traces of vehicles crossing snow-covered fields surrounded by forests and roads.

Westerners fear that Russia, which has amassed 150,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, will act as an excuse to intensify fighting for several days in line before invading its pro-Western neighbor.

Vladimir Putin blames Ukrainian “provocations” for the violence, which separatists have ordered the expulsion of civilians and the mobilization of men who can fight. According to Moscow, 53,000 of the three million citizens living in the separatist zone were forced to flee to Russia, and a state of emergency was declared in the Russian region of Kursk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemns the “provocative fire” of Moscow-backed rebels and calls for the resumption of talks with Russia under the OSCE and the establishment of an “immediate ceasefire”. Authorities in the Lugansk Autonomous Region killed two civilians in a bomb blast by the Ukrainian military on Monday, verifying allegations that could not be verified from independent sources.

According to Elysee, the importance of the ceasefire was also underlined during the Putin-Macron interview. Moscow says Russian and French diplomats Sergei Lavrov and Jean-Yves Le Trian will meet on Monday. An extraordinary meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe, dedicated to Ukraine, is set to take place on Monday.