Washington
\nU.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he is developing comprehensive initiatives to make it difficult for Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine and that he would not accept Moscow\u2019s \u201cred lines,\u201d as fears mounted that the simmering conflict could erupt into war.
\nA video teleconference between the two leaders is anticipated within days.
\nMore than 94,000 Russian troops are massed near Ukraine\u2019s borders, said Ukraine\u2019s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, who cited intelligence reports suggesting Moscow may be planning a large-scale military offensive for the end of January.
\nMoscow, in turn, has accused Ukraine and the United States of destabilizing behavior and suggested Kyiv might be preparing to launch its own offensive in eastern Ukraine, which the Ukrainian authorities deny.
\n\u201cWhat I am doing is putting together what I believe to be the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr. Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he\u2019s going to do,\u201d Biden said, without going into detail.
\nAs he departed for a weekend trip to Camp David later on Friday, Biden told reporters: \u201cWe\u2019re aware of Russia\u2019s actions for a long time and my expectation is we\u2019re going to have a long discussion with Putin.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t accept anybody\u2019s red lines,\u201d he said of Russia\u2019s demands.
\nU.S. and Ukrainian officials warned again this week that severe economic sanctions are on the table against Russia.
\n\u201cSince the beginning of this administration we have demonstrated that the United States and our allies are willing to use a number of tools to address harmful Russian actions,\u201d a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said when asked about the plan Biden is developing. \u201cWe will not hesitate from making use of those and other tools in the future.\u201d
\nWhite House press secretary Jen Psaki told a briefing that security assistance for Ukraine is under consideration.
\nUkrainian tensions set the backdrop for the first call in months between the U.S. president and his Russian counterpart as soon as next week. Officials have been negotiating terms of the call after Putin and Biden last spoke in July.
\nThe Kremlin said on Friday that Russia and the United States had a tentative date and time for the video summit in the coming days, but that Moscow was waiting for Washington to finalize it. The White House said only that it is \u201cengaged\u201d in talks for a possible call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he is developing comprehensive initiatives to make it difficult for Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine and that he would not accept Moscow\u2019s \u201cred lines,\u201d as fears mounted that the simmering conflict could erupt into war. A video teleconference between the two leaders is anticipated within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-231013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n