In a phone conversation on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the need to speed up the search for diplomatic solutions to the worsening crisis in eastern Ukraine, according to the Kremlin.
“In view of the urgency of the situation, the Presidents acknowledged the need to intensify the search for solutions through diplomatic means via the foreign ministries and political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy format,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
“These contacts should facilitate the restoration of the ceasefire regime and ensure progress in the settlement of the conflict in Donbass,” the Kremlin added.
US President Joe Biden is also willing to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin “at any time” to defuse tensions in the Ukraine war, his top diplomat said Sunday, warning Russia appeared on the verge of invading its neighbor.
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In a rapid-fire round of US talk shows, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN that “everything we’re seeing suggests that this is dead serious, that we are on the brink of an invasion.”
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“But until the tanks are actually rolling and the planes are flying, we will use every opportunity and every minute we have to see if diplomacy can still dissuade President Putin from carrying this forward.”
Blinken told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Biden has made “very clear that he’s prepared to meet President Putin at any time, in any format, if that can help prevent a war.”
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