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A phone call is scheduled between US President Joe Biden and Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin on Saturday
Photo: Susan Walsh / dpa
In view of the increasing tensions in the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden want to talk on the phone this Saturday, according to the Kremlin.
"In fact, the American side has asked for a meeting with President Putin, and a meeting between the two presidents is planned for tomorrow evening Moscow time," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday evening, according to the Interfax agency.
US President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had previously promised Putin and Biden a phone call, but had not yet made any concrete announcements.
Moscow also confirmed a phone call between the Kremlin chief and French President Emmanuel Macron that was planned for Saturday.
The US and Russian chiefs of staff, Mark Milley and Valeri Gerasimov, spoke on the phone on Friday.
The US Department of Defense said the conversation was about security issues, without giving any further details.
The US government had announced that it considered a Russian invasion of Ukraine possible before the end of the Winter Olympics in China on February 20 and that it would move around 3,000 more soldiers to the NATO partner state of Poland.
"We continue to see signs of a Russian escalation, including new troops arriving at the Ukrainian border," Sullivan said.
However, he made it clear that he was not saying that Putin had made a decision to invade.
"The White House hysteria is more revealing than ever," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
'The Anglo-Saxons need a war.
At any price," she wrote on the social network Telegram.
According to Western sources, Russia has massed more than 100,000 soldiers on the border with Ukraine in recent months.
In Ukraine, as in the West, this is fueling fears of a major Russian attack on the neighboring country.
Russia denies any attack plans.
At the same time, the Kremlin says it feels threatened by NATO.
Hectic crisis diplomacy has been going on for weeks to prevent the conflict from escalating.
Biden and Putin last spoke to each other on the phone at the end of December.
jso/mel/dpa/AFP