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President Joe Biden, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, will discuss on Tuesday rising tensions over Ukraine, the White House confirmed Saturday.
This was reported by White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who said in a statement that the two leaders will hold a video conference on December 7.
Psaki explained that President Biden will highlight U.S. concerns over Russian military activities on the Ukrainian border and reaffirm U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Biden and Putin will also address other issues such as cybersecurity and strategic stability.
The conversation, the first between the two leaders since their summer meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, comes on the same day that intelligence services believe Russia may try to invade Ukraine in early 2022.
Moscow has been again mobilizing troops on the Ukrainian border in recent weeks in the face of growing concerns on the part of Washington and Kyiv.
Specifically, U.S. intelligence services, which have satellite images of these movements, point to the transfer of about 175,000 Russian troops, along with equipment and artillery, according to The Washington Post, the first to access these new documents.
This Friday, Biden said that he is preparing “a series of measures”, which he did not detail, to defend Ukraine in case Putin decides to launch a military attack.
For his part, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned this week that Washington and its allies would hit Moscow with heavy economic sanctions if it decides to attack Ukraine, after meeting in Stockholm with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Ukraine aspires to join NATO as the best defense mechanism against the threat from the Kremlin, which annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and openly supports the pro-Russian separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
