Zelensky to Speak to Biden ‘In Coming Hours’

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky will speak to US President Joe Biden “in the coming hours”, his office said on Sunday afternoon, as Western fears grow that Russia is about to invade the ex-Soviet state.

“In the coming hours, President Volodymyr Zelensky will discuss the security situation and current diplomatic efforts to de-escalate with US President Joe Biden,” Zelensky’s press secretary Sergiy Nikiforov said on Facebook.

The talks come one day after the White House reported there had been no breakthrough during a one-hour phone conversation between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Washington warned on Friday that Russia had amassed sufficient forces around Ukraine to stage an offensive “any day”.

Russia denies planning an invasion but wants the US-led NATO alliance to immediately respond to its demands for new security guarantees.

Russia wants NATO to pull its forces out of eastern European and pledge to never expand into Ukraine.

Washington has rejected those demands while raising the prospects of striking a new European disarmament agreement with Moscow.

The US also wants Russia to pull back its forces as a gesture of goodwill.

Moscow calls Washington’s response insufficient.

A flurry of urgent phone consultations and meetings have so far failed to calm one of the most heated standoffs between the West and Russia since the Cold War.

© Agence France-Presse

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