While war is likely to break out in Ukraine at any moment, the presidents of the United States and Russia are due to talk on Saturday, February 12.
The White House said Russian President Vladimir Putin had called for the talks to take place on Monday, but the US president called for the talks to be held soon.
Meanwhile, US foreign minister Anthony Blanken, who is in Fiji, said he hoped Vladimir Putin would pursue a diplomatic path, but that Washington would impose tougher sanctions on Moscow if it attacked Ukraine.
Mr Blanken said: “I am convinced that he will not resort to renewed violence but through diplomacy and dialogue.”
Russia has deployed more than 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine, and the West believes it is part of a plan to take military action against Ukraine.
Russia says it has no plans to invade Ukraine, but has called on NATO to suspend its membership in the alliance and to urge the United States not to establish military bases in the former Soviet Union. The United States and NATO have formally rejected the offer.
US President Joe Biden, who will be speaking by telephone from Camp David to Mr Putin, has long believed that one-on-one talks with Mr Putin might be the best chance for a solution.
The two rounds of talks between Biden and Vladimir Putin in December did not yield any major results, but instead paved the way for talks between their advisers.
Thursday’s quadripartite talks between Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France in the German capital, Berlin, made no progress. According to Russia’s Tass news agency, Putin also wants to hold a telephone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, February 12.
As the Ukraine crisis continues to escalate, the State Department is expelling unnecessary staff from its embassy in Kiev. Mr Biden called on Americans to leave Ukraine in a television interview yesterday.
A number of Western countries, including Britain and Germany, have called on their citizens to leave Ukraine. Australia and New Zealand also told their compatriots on Saturday to leave Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have dismissed the US president’s warning as “irrelevant” and have tried to quell tensions among their own people. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Koliba called Biden’s remarks a repetition of previous State Department warnings.
In other news, Poland’s defense minister said on February 11 that the United States would send 3000 more troops to Poland. The United States has decided to send troops to Poland and Romania to support NATO in Eastern Europe.
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