White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that during the 50-minute phone call between the two leaders, Biden made it clear to the Russian president that “the United States, with its allies and partners, will respond decisively in the event of a further invasion of Ukraine by Russia.”
For his part, the Russian President expressed his satisfaction with the phone call with his American counterpart, but warned the US President against imposing new sanctions on his country amid tension with Ukraine, according to what the Kremlin announced.
The Kremlin said the Russian president had warned his US counterpart that new Western sanctions against Moscow could harm relations between Russia and the United States and would be a big mistake.
In turn, Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said that the Kremlin was generally “comfortable” with the talks, but the Russian president told Biden that Moscow needed to produce concrete “results” in the upcoming security talks, warning against imposing sanctions on his country.
Ushakov added, during a virtual press conference, that imposing sanctions “would be a grave mistake. We hope that does not happen.”
Moscow has alarmed the West after massing tens of thousands of troops near its border with Ukraine in the past two months, after seizing Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and supporting separatists fighting the government in eastern Ukraine.
Russia denies planning to attack Ukraine, and says it has the right to move its forces on its territory as it pleases.
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