Russia-Ukraine standoff: Biden-Putin talks yield no breakthrough

Efforts to defuse the crisis in Ukraine via a frenzy of telephone diplomacy failed to ease tensions, with US President Joe Biden warning that Russia faces "swift and severe costs" if its troops carry out an invasion.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin slammed Western claims that Moscow was planning such a move as "provocative speculation" that could lead to conflict in the ex-Soviet country, according to a Russian readout of a call with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Speaking after new phone talks between Putin and Biden late on Saturday, the Kremlin's top foreign policy advisor Yury Ushakov told a conference call: "Hysteria has reached its peak."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday said the diplomatic path remained open to end the standoff with Moscow but said the risk of Russian military action was high enough to warrant pulling US embassy staff out of Kyiv, reports Reuters. More than a dozen countries have urged citizens to leave or avoid travel to Ukraine. Many of them have also been scaling back or evacuating staff from their Kyiv missions.

Ukraine, meanwhile, vowed to keep its airspace open to international travel despite warnings that Russian troops conducting drills near its borders could invade at any point, reports AFP.

The Dutch carrier KLM on Saturday became the first major airline to indefinitely suspend flights to the former Soviet republic because of the rising risks.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has compared Western diplomatic efforts to head off the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the appeasement of Nazi Germany ahead of World War II.