"I will mobilize troops to Eastern Europe and NATO countries": Biden keeps pressure on Putin

US President Joe Biden is keeping up the pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin over Ukraine by announcing a small troop deployment to Eastern Europe, even as top Pentagon officials backed diplomatic efforts.

“I will mobilize troops to Eastern Europe and NATO countries in the short term. Not many,” Biden told reporters on Friday. The United States has already put 8,500 soldiers on alert to reinforce NATO.

The Secretary of Defense of the United States, Lloyd Austin, estimated that with more than 100,000 soldiers concentrated on the border with Ukraine, Russia has enough forces for an invasion, but stressed that a conflict between kyiv and Moscow “is not inevitable. ”.

"There is still time and space for diplomacy," Austin told reporters.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, while calling on Westerners not to sow "panic" about the risk of a Russian invasion of their country, while Putin, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, agreed on the "need for a de-escalation”.

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Diplomatic Gamble In London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was "determined to accelerate diplomatic efforts and strengthen deterrence to prevent bloodshed in Europe," according to a Downing Street spokeswoman on Friday night. Johnson is due to meet with Putin in the coming days, before a trip to the region.

For his part, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is expected to arrive in kyiv on Tuesday. "Poland supports Ukraine to prevent Russian aggression," Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller announced on Twitter.

Zelensky stressed in kyiv that "the probability of attack exists" but "there is no escalation higher than what already existed" last year. Thus, he asked Russia to "take measures to show" that it will not attack, according to a press release from kyiv.

He considered that "the greatest risk" for Ukraine is "the destabilization of the internal situation", rather than the threat of an invasion.

During a conversation with the French president on Friday, Zelensky called for "multiplying meetings and negotiations (...) as long as there is a favorable climate for dialogue," the note said. "As long as diplomatic efforts continue, the likelihood of an escalation decreases," Zelensky said.

Russia denies having invasion plans. Yet it is seen as threatened by NATO's eastward expansion over the past 20 years and Western support for Ukraine.

For this reason, Moscow conditioned the de-escalation on the Transatlantic Alliance interrupting its expansionist policy and militarily withdrawing to the positions of 1997.

The United States and NATO rejected the main Russian demands on Wednesday.

"The responses of the United States and NATO did not take into account the fundamental concerns of Russia," the Kremlin said in a statement after the conversation between Putin and Macron.

“The key issue was ignored, which is how the United States and its allies envisage… putting into effect the principle that no one should enhance their security to the detriment of other countries,” he added.

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"Need for a de-escalation" Still, according to Paris, Macron and Putin highlighted the "need for a de-escalation" and advocated continuing the "dialogue" to solve the crisis.

"President Putin did not express any offensive intention," stressed the French Presidency.

Both Europe and the United States have threatened to apply harsh sanctions against Russia if it decides to invade Ukraine.

On the table would be the strategic Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which connects Russia with Germany, or the closure of Russian access to dollar transactions.

On Friday, Washington and the European Union affirmed in a joint statement that they are working on supplying "additional volumes of natural gas" for Europe, in order to face any possible consequence of a "new Russian invasion of Ukraine".

In addition, the United States demanded that the UN Security Council hold a meeting on Monday because of the "clear threat" that Moscow would represent for "international peace and security."

For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed: “If it depends on Russia, there will be no war. We don't want wars. But neither are we going to allow our interests to be crudely outraged, ignored.

Moscow had warned that if its requests were not met, it would respond forcefully, but it did not specify how.

European countries and the United States must be "very careful" not to make concessions to Russia or offer the Russians "something they didn't have before," Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told AFP on Friday. “The only one that can undertake a de-escalation is Russia,” she assured.

On Friday night, Russian diplomacy announced that it was prohibiting the entry into the country of officials of the security forces and legislative and executive bodies of some EU countries who are "personally responsible for the spread of the anti-Russian policy".

Leading Russian lawmakers have suggested that Russia recognize and arm pro-Russian separatists operating in eastern Ukraine. Moscow is considered the instigator of this conflict that began in 2014 after the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

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