Ukraine peace summit plan: Russia pours cold water

The Kremlin warned yesterday there are no concrete plans for a summit between the Russian and US leaders, as diplomats scrambled to head off the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The idea of a meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden has been championed by France and cautiously welcomed by Ukraine as a way to avert a catastrophic war in Europe.

But Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "It's premature to talk about any specific plans for organising any kind of summits" adding that no "concrete plans" had been put in place.

France's President Emmanuel Macron called Putin on Sunday and afterwards his office said that both the Russian and Biden were open to the idea.

The summit would go ahead, however, only "on the condition that Russia does not invade Ukraine."

"There is a diplomatic hope," France's minister for European Affairs Clement Beaune told LCI television.

"If there is still a chance to avoid war, to avoid a confrontation and build a political and diplomatic solution, then we need to take it," he said.

But in Washington, a senior US administration official told AFP: "Timing to be determined. Format to be determined. So it's all completely notional."

Visiting Brussels, Ukraine's foreign minister welcomed the French effort. "We believe that every effort aimed a diplomatic solution is worth trying," Dmytro Kuleba said.

Kuleba also said the European Union had agreed "in principle" to set up an advisory military instructor mission in Ukraine, but the details have yet to be thrashed out.

Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said there was no sign of Russian forces withdrawing from the border, and that Moscow-backed rebels continue to shell Ukrainian positions.

"Since the beginning of this day, as of 09:00, 14 attacks have already been recorded, 13 of them from weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements," he told reporters in Kyiv.

Ukraine yesterday firmly denied Russian claims that Russian forces had killed five Ukrainian "saboteurs" who allegedly crossed the border to stage an attack.

Putin told his security council it was necessary to consider an appeal from the leaders of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine for Russia to recognise them as independent.

Putin also said in televised remarks yesterday that the threat to Russia would substantially increase if Ukraine were to join Nato.

In recent weeks, according to US intelligence, Moscow has massed more than 150,000 troops and sailors around Ukraine's borders in Belarus, Russia, Crimea and the Black Sea, reports Reuters.

A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a media briefing yesterday that intelligence reports suggest Putin intends to launch an invasion of Ukraine, reports BBC.

"The intelligence we are seeing suggests that Russia intends to launch an invasion and that President Putin's plan has already begun," the spokesman said.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said yesterday intelligence suggests any Russian invasion of Ukraine would employ a particularly brutal strategy to "crush" the civilian population.

The foreign ministers of the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will travel to Ukraine this week, officials said.

The visit is to "express solidarity and support for Ukraine in its struggle for independence and territorial integrity", Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said on Twitter.