It is “premature” to talk about specific plans for a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said after an announcement on Sunday from French President Emmanuel Macron that his Russian and US counterparts had agreed in principle to attend talks aimed at de-escalating the Ukraine crisis.
The Elysee Palace had put out a statement after last-minute diplomatic efforts by Macron to try to dissuade Russia from invading Ukraine amid further US warnings that war was imminent.
The White House has confirmed Biden’s readiness to hold a summit, but made clear that it was wary about the sincerity of the offer.
Photo: Reuters
Earlier yesterday, Russia’s FSB security service said that a shell fired from Ukrainian territory had completely destroyed a border guard post in Russia’s Rostov region, but caused no casualties.
Ukraine denied responsibility for the incident.
“At 9:50am an unidentified projectile fired from Ukrainian territory completely destroyed a service point of the FSB border guards in the Rostov region, located about 150m away from the Russia-Ukraine border,” the FSB said in a statement. “There are no casualties. Sappers are working there.”
The RIA news agency shared video footage published by the FSB, which showed that a small outhouse had been torn apart. The footage did not show the projectile.
Ukraine said that it had not shelled Russian territory.
Its military has previously accused Russia of faking pictures of shells to make out they were Ukrainian, and said that mercenaries have arrived in separatist-held eastern Ukraine to stage provocations in collaboration with Russian special forces.
Shelling across the line dividing Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine has intensified since Thursday, and diplomatic efforts have increased.
On Sunday evening, US satellite imagery company Maxar said that satellite images show new deployments of Russian troops and military equipment near the Ukrainian border.
The pictures show “multiple new field deployments of armored equipment and troops” departing from existing military sites into forests and fields about 15 to 30km from Russia’s border with Ukraine, Maxar said in an e-mail.
The photographs, taken on Sunday, appear to show vehicle tracks cutting through snow-covered fields that are surrounded by woodland and bordered by roads.
“Forty to 50 percent [of Russian troops] are in an attack position. They have uncoiled in tactical assembly in the last 48 hours,” a US official told reporters on Friday, insisting on anonymity.
In related news, the US has warned the UN it has information that Russia has lists of Ukrainians “to be killed or sent to camps” in the event of an invasion, according to a letter sent to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.
The note, signed by Bathsheba Nell Crocker, US ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland, said that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could bring with it abuses such as kidnappings or torture, and could target political dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities, among others.
Additional reporting by Reuters, AFP
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