Dec. 30 (UPI) — U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call on Thursday, their second in the past month.
Tensions at the Ukrainian border and Ukraine’s potential admission to NATO were highlighted as some of the primary talking points going into the call that began at 3:30 p.m. EST and concluded about 50 minutes later.
Putin, who requested the call, has said that Ukraine’s entrance into the defense alliance would amount to a security threat to Russia.
In the leaders’ first phone call on Dec. 7, Biden told Putin that Russia would face stiff economic punishment if it moved militarily against Ukraine.
For weeks, Russia has amassed thousands of troops along its shared border with Ukraine, setting off concern that Moscow is planning an invasion.
Beyond talks about the Ukraine border buildup, it was expected that Biden would take advantage of the call to preview planned bilateral talks between Washington and Moscow that are scheduled for Jan. 10.
Biden was also expected to raise the NATO-Russia and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe meetings that are scheduled for Jan. 12-13.
A senior administration official said the president would “reinforce NATO’s force posture” in eastern Europe if Russia attacked Ukraine.
“We are at a moment of crisis and have been for some weeks now, and it will take a high level of engagement to address this and try to find a path of de-escalation,” the official said, according to CNN.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that the call is a continuation of Putin’s past decisions with Biden.
“The goal is to continue discussing the issues that were on the agenda of their recent video call,” Peskov said, according to the state-run TASS news agency. “Besides, they will discuss a number of pressing issues related to the talks that will be held [in] January.”
