After weeks of silence on the Ukraine crisis, Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks directly to French President Emmanuel Macron, saying Moscow's main concerns are being ignored but that he wants to continue talking.
"President Putin said that he wanted to continue the dialogue and that it was important to work on the implementation of the Minsk accords," the official said, adding that Mr Putin emphasised he did not want the situation to escalate.
Those measures would build on sanctions imposed since Russia annexed Crimea and backed separatists in east Ukraine in 2014, although there are divisions among Western countries over how to respond because Europe is dependent on Russia for energy supplies. As Russia — which reportedly already has about 130,000 soldiers near Ukraine's border — moves troops and military hardware into Belarus for drills, NATO said it was watching closely.
"From the NATO side, we are ready to engage in political dialogue. But we're also ready to respond if Russia chooses an armed conflict confrontation," Mr Stoltenberg said in Brussels.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had earlier on Friday sent a conciliatory message while also saying the US and Western responses did not satisfy Russia's main demands."We don't want wars. But we also won't allow our interests to be rudely trampled, to be ignored.
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