VLADIMIR PUTIN

Putin says Moscow to station nuclear weapons in Belarus, first time since 1990s

Reuters — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 19:15:30 GMT

Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday, marking the first time since the mid-1990s that Moscow will have based such arms outside the country.

Putin made the announcement at a time of growing tensions with the West over the Ukraine war and as some Russian commentators speculate about possible nuclear strikes.

Putin told state television that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had long raised the issue of stationing tactical nuclear weapons in his country, which borders NATO member Poland.

"There is nothing unusual here either: firstly, the United States has been doing this for decades. They have long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allied countries," he said.

"We agreed that we will do the same - without violating our obligations, I emphasize, without violating our international obligations on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons."

Putin did not specify when the weapons would be transferred to Belarus. "Tactical" nuclear weapons refer to those used for specific gains in the battlefield.

Russia will have completed the construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by July 1, Putin said, adding that Moscow would not actually be transferring control of the arms to Minsk.

The U.S. State Department and the Pentagon did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Russia has stationed 10 aircraft in Belarus capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, he said, adding that Moscow had already transferred to Belarus a number of Iskander tactical missile systems that can be used to launch nuclear weapons.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, nuclear weapons were deployed in the four newly-independent states of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

In May 1992, the four states agreed all the weapons should be based in Russia and the transfer of warheads from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan was completed in 1996.

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Putin, Xi discuss Chinese peace proposal for Ukraine as US denounces visit

Reuters — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 13:17:30 GMT

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed Beijing's proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine during a first day of talks in Moscow and they were meeting again on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.

Xi's visit is a boost to Moscow as it struggles to make ground in its year-long war on Ukraine. But it was criticized by Washington as providing "diplomatic cover" for Putin and for the war crimes his forces are accused of committing there.

While China has sought to cast itself as a potential peace-maker in the conflict, the visit underlined an ever-closer relationship between Moscow and Beijing and their challenge to the West.

The two men spoke for more than four hours on Monday and enjoyed a state dinner at the Kremlin, warmly praising each other as a "dear friend," Russian media reported.

By contrast, Xi may only speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy by telephone, if at all.

But in a trip pointedly coinciding with Xi's Moscow talks, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday to deliver a message of solidarity and support for Ukraine.

In other developments, Ukraine's defense ministry said an explosion in Dzhankoi in the north of the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula destroyed Russian cruise missiles intended for use by Russia's Black Sea fleet.

On the battlefields in eastern Ukraine, Russia kept up air raids as well as missile and rocket strikes over a wide area, the Ukrainian military said.

Ukraine said Russia's main aim was to reach the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Donbas, large areas of which are already under Russian control.

Russian forces had again made attacks on the city of Bakhmut - site of the longest and bloodiest battle of the war - and other targets but had been repelled, it said.

Vague plan

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Xi had on Monday talked about a Chinese proposal calling for a de-escalation and eventual ceasefire in Ukraine.

"There was a very thorough exchange of views, a serious conversation," he said.

He declined to give further details, telling reporters to wait for a joint statement later on Tuesday after the two leaders meet for a second day of talks.

The Chinese document sets out some general principles in a 12-point plan but contains no details on how to end the war, now in its 13th month.

The proposal has been largely dismissed in the West as a ploy to buy Putin time to regroup his forces and solidify his grip on occupied land.

Ukrainian and Western officials fear any ceasefire would merely freeze the front lines, handing Russia an advantage as it struggles to make headway following a serious of setbacks since launching its invasion in February last year.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Xi's visit suggested that "China feels no responsibility to hold the Kremlin accountable for the atrocities committed in Ukraine."

"Instead of even condemning them, it would rather provide diplomatic cover for Russia to continue to commit those grave crimes," Blinken said.

China has refrained from condemning Russia or referring to Moscow's intervention in its neighbor as an "invasion." It has also criticized Western sanctions on Russia.

Foreign policy analysts said while Putin would be looking for strong support from Xi over Ukraine, they doubted his Moscow visit would result in any military backing.

Washington has said in recent weeks it fears China might arm Russia, a plan Beijing has denied.

Kyiv, which says the war cannot end until Russia pulls out its troops, has been circumspect towards China, cautiously welcoming Beijing's peace proposal when it was announced last month.

It was not clear if and when exactly Xi would talk to Ukraine's Zelenskiy.

"We are waiting for confirmation," Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. "That would be an important move. They have things to say to each other."

But the visit by Japan's Kishida at the same time that Xi was in Moscow was a signal of Western resolve in backing Kyiv.

Constant mortar fire

In the town of Chasiv Yar, just west of Bakhmut, and the nearby village of Kalynivka in eastern Ukraine, there was heavy artillery fire from nearby Ukrainian positions as well as incoming impacts.

Between apartment blocks in central Chasiv Yar, mainly elderly residents queued for water and food delivered by a team from the State Emergency Service.

Oleksii Stepanov, speaking in the town of Kostyantinivka, said he had been in Bakhmut until five days ago but was evacuated by the military when his house was destroyed by a missile.

“We were in the kitchen and the missile came through the roof. The kitchen was all that was left standing,” said the 54-year-old. He said there was constant mortar fire in the city when he left.

Ukraine's Defence Ministry said an explosion in Dzhankoi city in Crimea destroyed Russian Kalibr-KN cruise missiles as they were being transported by rail.

A ministry statement said the missiles, designed to be launched from surface ships in Russia's Black Sea fleet, had an operational range of more than 2,500 km (1,550 miles) on land and 375 km at sea. It stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack.

Russian-installed officials in Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014, said the blast was caused by drones laced with shrapnel and explosives and targeted civilian sites. One person was injured.

TASS quoted Ihor Ivin, head of the administration, as saying a house, school and grocery store caught fire and the power grid sustained damage.

"There are no military sites nearby," Administration adviser Oleg Kryuchkov said.

Reuters was unable to independently verify either the Ukrainian or the Russian reports. A Russian military air base is located near Dzhankoi.

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ICC judges issue arrest warrant for Putin over war crimes in Ukraine

Bart Meijer / Reuters — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 16:02:47 GMT

AMSTERDAM — The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on Friday against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of being responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations that its forces have committed atrocities during its one-year invasion of its neighbor.

The ICC arrest warrants "have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on her Telegram channel.

She added that Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty underpinning the world's permanent war crimes tribunal.

In its first warrant for Ukraine, the ICC called for Putin's arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this week Reuters reported that the court was expected to issue warrants.

Separately the court issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, on the same charges.

Russia has not concealed a program under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan opened an investigation into possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine a year ago. He highlighted during four trips to Ukraine that he was looking at alleged crimes against children and the targeting of civilian infrastructure.

The ICC said in a statement Putin stands accused of the war crime of unlawful deportation from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

"The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian occupied territory at least from 24 February 2022. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes."

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How a US firm supplied networking technology to maker of feared Russian missiles

Aram Roston and David Gauthier-Villars / Reuters — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 15:05:33 GMT

WASHINGTON — Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, American companies have been prohibited from dealing with MMZ Avangard, a state-owned firm that makes missiles for one of Russia's most sophisticated weapons, the S-400 air-defense system.

In a measure of Western concern about the S-400, the United States ejected Turkey, a NATO member, from a joint fighter jet program in 2019 after Ankara took delivery of the Russian system.

But even as the United States was taking actions to blunt MMZ Avangard's business, a publicly traded American technology company, Extreme Networks, was providing MMZ Avangard with computer networking equipment for its office IT systems, according to emails and other business records seen by Reuters, as well as interviews with people familiar with the matter.

In a statement to Reuters, Extreme said that based on information provided by the news agency it believed equipment "may have" been sold to MMZ Avangard using a surrogate buyer. Extreme said the equipment was sold without its knowledge. It added, without providing evidence, that an intermediary in Russia was "complicit" in supplying its products via a front company to "bad actors." Extreme said it is reporting its findings of these potential sales to U.S. authorities.

Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying missiles made by MMZ Avangard against ground targets since Russia launched what it terms its "special operation" on Feb. 24. Ukrainian authorities said MMZ Avangard missiles killed at least thirty civilians in a gruesome attack against a convoy on the edge of the southern city of Zaporizhzhia last month. Neither Kremlin officials nor MMZ Avangard responded to questions for this article. MMZ Avangard's parent, Almaz-Antey, also didn't comment.

Between 2017 and 2021, MMZ Avangard obtained over half a million dollars' worth of Extreme equipment for its IT systems, according to the business records reviewed by Reuters and the people familiar with the matter. The products included high-speed switches, an essential building block of corporate IT networks, and software.

The records also show that the deals went through a seemingly innocuous corporation near Moscow, and despite two Extreme officials raising concerns, the sales went forward.

That a Russian military company, identified as a threat by Washington, continued to acquire U.S. computer hardware is a case study in how Western countries may have overestimated their ability to choke the Russian economy with export bans and trade sanctions. It also highlights how dependent Russia's military machine is on U.S. high-tech equipment.

In April, six weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, an Extreme employee filed an internal complaint, seen by Reuters, alleging that the company was selling to various military manufacturers in Russia. "Extreme equipment is used on Russian warships," the complaint said, "in communications systems."

Extreme said in its statement that the allegations were brought by a disgruntled employee. An investigation by the firm had found nothing to corroborate any of the claims until Reuters brought "new facts" to the company's attention this month. The company said it ceased operations in Russia in March, adding that it subsequently launched a process to dismiss the disgruntled employee for poor performance. It said it has no records of sales involving Russian warships.

Extreme, which trades on the NASDAQ exchange and is headquartered in Morrisville, North Carolina, has earned a solid reputation in the United States and is an official partner of the National Football League. The NFL declined to comment for this article.

A Reuters investigation in August found that while the United States and allies banned high-tech exports to Russia to try to cripple its defense industry, and many tech companies announced that they had halted exports to Russia, the flow of Western brand-name computer parts to Russian clients hasn't stopped.

This account of how Extreme supplied MMZ Avangard and at least two other Russian military companies is based on interviews with three people familiar with the shipments as well as a review by Reuters of documents spanning five years to 2021. The documents include sales records and email exchanges between Extreme employees, customers and distributors. The shipments are reported here for the first time.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, which administers export restrictions, declined to comment for this story.

'It was necessary to use cover'

Russian companies, including those in the military sector, have virtually no choice but to buy foreign equipment to build the computer networks necessary for modern-day business. Russia has very limited domestic production of networking equipment.

Founded in 1996, Extreme is a junior player in the computer networking industry. Last year, it posted revenue of $1.1 billion, compared with $50 billion for Cisco Systems.

Still, the smaller company is a "meaningful competitor," according to Alex Henderson, a network and security analyst at Needham and Company in New York. The U.S. military as well as NASA use Extreme hardware and support, according to contracting records, and the company has built up a substantial marketing profile.

In Russia, as well, Extreme lists prestigious customers, such as the Ministry of Health, the federal pension fund and Lomonosov Moscow State University.

But according to documents seen by Reuters, other buyers of Extreme equipment included not just MMZ Avangard but a major Russian military shipbuilding company and a high-tech defense electronics manufacturer.

One of the documents shows that in the four years ending 2020, Russian customers purchased $41.5 million worth of equipment. Reuters couldn't determine Extreme's total sales to sanctioned or military firms because it wasn't clear if transactions other than those involving MMZ Avangard had been recorded under cover names.

In its statement to Reuters, Extreme said it doesn't report country specific revenue.

In Russia, Extreme maintained contacts with its customers in order to help design complex networks that expand over time, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. Each customer or potential buyer had its own account manager at the company and was listed on internal sales records. Actual sales, though, were done through authorized intermediaries.

Extreme, in its statement to Reuters, said it rarely provided direct installation services. It said it had no such contracts with DEMZ or MMZ Avangard.

In its statement, Extreme said it has a "firm policy" not to work with sanctioned entities, but added it isn't always notified of the end customer, especially when its products are sold through so-called "stocking" distributors that hold an inventory.

Extreme named one of those distributors as RRC and said it believed RRC was "complicit" in the scheme to supply MMZ Avangard. RRC and its Cyprus parent, BD Enterprise Networking didn't respond to messages from Reuters seeking comment.

For Russian military companies, Extreme equipment had a strong selling point, the three people familiar with the shipments said: Unlike larger rivals, Extreme doesn't require service subscriptions and frequent software updates. "It is absolutely autonomous," one of the people said of the equipment. "It works without a license and you don't even need to be connected to the internet." This means, another person said, that "you don't need to fear that your system will go dark because someone in the U.S. decided to disconnect you."

Extreme said that the "autonomous model" is not unique to the company, but acknowledged it has become relatively rare.

It was no secret in Russia that MMZ Avangard used Extreme equipment. In late 2019, the missile manufacturer issued a tender through Russia's online public procurement platform, saying it needed spare parts for the Extreme computer networks it possessed. Extreme didn't dispute this but said it wouldn't necessarily be aware of such a tender.

A few months before, in the summer of 2019, an intermediary had contacted Extreme's representative office in Russia, asking for advice on a network upgrade for the missile company, the documents show. "We are working on a solution for the customer, MMZ Avangard," an employee of the intermediary wrote in a June 28, 2019, email to an Extreme system engineer. "I was told that I could seek your help."

As soon as its equipment arrived in Moscow, Extreme dispatched a staff engineer to MMZ Avangard's offices to help ensure a smooth installation, one of the people familiar with the shipments said.

In its statement to Reuters, Extreme said it had no records of an Extreme employee installing equipment at MMZ Avangard.

When it came to processing MMZ Avangard's purchasing orders, the missile maker's name didn't appear on Extreme's books. Instead, Extreme's Moscow employees recorded the orders as having been placed by a company called OOO DEMZ, according to emails and sales records, as well as three people familiar with the matter.

"It was necessary to use a cover because the Russian company is blacklisted in the U.S.," one of the people familiar with the shipments said. It has been illegal for U.S. companies to do business with MMZ Avangard since July 2014, when the U.S. Treasury Department listed its parent company, Almaz-Antey, as a "blocked" entity. The Treasury declined to comment for this story.

MMZ Avangard began buying products from Extreme in December 2017 and was disguised under the DEMZ cover in Extreme business records from that date, according to emails and other documents seen by Reuters. The most recent transaction using the DEMZ cover that Reuters identified was in September 2021. In total, the records show that Extreme shipped goods worth about $645,000 in this way during that period.

Extreme, in its statement, said it now believes that its equipment may have been acquired through a "front company." Extreme confirmed that the DEMZ account listed product purchases for approximately $645,000.

DEMZ is a small company based in Dmitrov, a city 50 miles north of Moscow. Russian corporate records list Vladimir Markov as its general director. Reached by phone, Markov said that DEMZ, which made tools for railcar maintenance, ceased all operations in 2016. The executive said he had never heard of Extreme or of DEMZ buying Extreme equipment for itself or on behalf of others.

The apparent ruse was a shallow one. Purported executives for DEMZ, listed in the Extreme customer records seen by Reuters, were actually employees of the missile maker who had provided their MMZ Avangard email addresses. They even included the Avangard email addresses when they applied for access to an Extreme customer service portal. One of these people declined to comment. The other couldn't be reached. Some of the documents also listed mmza.ru - MMZ Avangard's domain name - as DEMZ's purported web address.

On the last day of 2019, as a "DEMZ" order was winding through Extreme's approval system, an Extreme sales manager working in North Carolina emailed RRC, the Russian distributor, with a question about the domain name: "Can you tell me what the relationship is between DEMZ and mmza.ru?" An employee of the distributor responded that mmza.ru was "the customer's" domain. The employee didn't elaborate. A subsequent message indicates that the sale went through.

Extreme, in its statement, did not address questions about MMZ Avangard staff registering for access to online support, and an Extreme sales manager raising questions about the web domain.

Nearly a year later, dealing with another set of "DEMZ" orders, an employee from Extreme's in-house compliance desk in Ireland spotted the mmza.ru domain in the sales paperwork and researched it.

"This link," the compliance team employee said in a Nov. 11, 2020, email, "goes directly to https://mmzavangard.ru/ which is a defense contractor seemingly to specialize in ground to air missile systems, we need to further review before we can make a decision."

Extreme, in its statement, also did not address questions about this email.

'Good news'

The Extreme compliance employee instructed the Russia office to have "DEMZ," the purported customer, fill out a form to certify there was no military end-user, that the equipment would not be resold for any military purpose, and that it would not be transferred to any sanctioned company.

Less than a week after the message from the Extreme compliance employee, a two-page letter seen by Reuters attested that the end-user was not sanctioned, and would not use Extreme's equipment in a way banned by U.S. law. Bearing an illegible signature and a blue "DEMZ" stamp, the document was sent to Extreme's compliance desk, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

DEMZ's business, according to the purported self-declaration, had nothing to do with sophisticated missiles. Rather it was "components for the Metalworking of country houses." DEMZ never made such components and was out of business at the time of the letter, according to former director general Markov.

"Just heard back from our supply team for the DEMZ orders," emailed the North Carolina manager on Nov. 25 "with some good news."

The sales could go through.

"Thank you," Extreme's Vienna-based regional director for Northern and Eastern Europe wrote.

U.S. export control specialists told Reuters self-declarations can be useful in determining whether a client is legitimate. However, upon coming across a red flag, "you stop or put on hold the transaction," said James Fuller, a former special agent with the U.S. Department of Commerce. "You don't offer an avenue to provide more false information, or suggest some kind of workaround."

Extreme in its statement to Reuters confirmed that its internal compliance officer had requested and received the self-declaration. The company added that it has "other screening processes to check for red flags."

Shipbuilding

In Russia, Extreme supplied IT equipment to other military companies, according to the business documents seen by Reuters and the people familiar with the matter.

One of them was United Shipbuilding Corp. The company has headquarters in St. Petersburg and operates a host of Russian shipyards, making everything from frigates to submarines to mine sweepers. Like MMZ Avangard, United Shipbuilding has been listed as a "blocked" entity by the U.S. Treasury since July 2014.

Another one was Concern Morinformsystem-Agat, a manufacturer of radar and other military electronics systems. According to the documents, including a July 2020 public tender, and one of the people familiar with the matter, Agat was relying on equipment from Extreme for some of its systems, which were then fitted on United Shipbuilding warships.

Extreme told Reuters it had no records of selling products to United Shipbuilding or Agat. The Russian companies did not respond to requests for comment.

United Shipbuilding is clearly described as an Extreme customer in email correspondence. In April 2020, an intermediary contacted Extreme's office in Moscow to submit the plan the intermediary had sketched out to modernize United Shipbuilding's data center.

A Russia-based engineer from Extreme responded the next day, pointing to a few items that could be removed from the proposed design.

"Apart from that, it's all correct," the Extreme engineer wrote in the email.

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Putin and Biden could meet or talk but no firm plans yet

Reuters — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 12:50:34 GMT

MOSCOW — The Kremlin said on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden could set up a call or meeting any time but there were no concrete plans yet for a summit.

Tensions were growing over Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters, but diplomatic contacts were active. He said Putin would imminently address a special session of Russia's security council.

Peskov was speaking after French President Emmanuel Macron said Putin and Biden had agreed in principle to a summit over the Ukraine crisis.

The United States and its allies have been warning for days that Russia could invade Ukraine at any time, which Moscow denies.

Peskov said U.S. media reports that Russia had drawn up a list of Ukrainians to capture or kill after an invasion were an "absolute lie."

He described as "highly unusual" a U.S. embassy warning to Americans in Russia that they should prepare plans to leave the country if necessary.

The security alert on Sunday cited media sources as saying there had been threats of attacks against shopping centers, railway and metro stations and other public places, including in Moscow, St Petersburg and areas near the Russia-Ukraine border.

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; writing by Alexander Marrow and Mark Trevelyan.)

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Biden tells Putin Ukraine invasion would bring swift, decisive response

Trevor Hunnicutt and Vladimir Soldatkin / Reuters — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 20:12:24 GMT

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW - U.S. President Joe Biden told Russia's Vladimir Putin during an hour-long call on Saturday that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would bring a decisive and swift response from the West, as well as produce widespread suffering and diminish Russia's standing in the world.

In the latest effort to avert hostilities, the two men spoke by phone a day after Washington and its allies warned Russian forces massed near Ukraine could invade at any moment. A senior Biden administration official said the call was professional and substantive, but said there was no fundamental change.

Russia's military buildup near Ukraine and a surge of military activity has fueled fears that Russia could invade. Russia denies having any such plans.

Biden told Putin that the United States is prepared for diplomacy and "other scenarios," the White House said.

The senior Biden administration official said the pair had a direct conversation touching on all the issues the United States has raised in public. The official said it remains unclear whether Putin is willing to pursue a diplomatic path.

Earlier on Saturday, the U.S. State Department ordered most of its embassy staff to leave Ukraine, adding to its call on Friday for private citizens to get out of the country within 48 hours. The Pentagon said it was withdrawing about 150 military trainers.

More countries told their citizens in Ukraine to leave the country immediately, with Israel, Portugal and Bulgaria joining the list on Saturday.

In a separate call on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron told Putin that sincere negotiations were incompatible with an escalation in tensions over Ukraine, France said.

Biden and Macron are due to speak later on Saturday, according to a French presidency official. The official said there were no indications from what Putin told Macron that Russia is preparing an offensive against Ukraine.

Washington said on Friday that a Russian invasion of Ukraine, likely beginning with an air assault, could occur at any time.

Moscow has repeatedly disputed Washington's version of events, saying it has massed more than 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border to maintain its own security against aggression by NATO allies.

Russia, which has accused Western nations of spreading lies to distract from their own acts, meanwhile said on Saturday that it had decided to "optimize" its diplomatic staff numbers in Ukraine, fearing "provocations" by Kyiv or others.

It said its embassy and consulates in Ukraine continued to perform their key functions.

PATHS OF AGGRESSION, DIPLOMACY

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington would impose swift economic sanctions if Putin decides to invade.

"I continue to hope that he will not choose the path of renewed aggression and he'll chose the path of diplomacy and dialog," Blinken told reporters after a meeting with Pacific leaders in Fiji. "But if he doesn't, we're prepared."

In a phone call later with Blinken, Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov accused the United States and its allies of waging a "propaganda campaign" about Russian aggression towards Ukraine, the Russian foreign ministry said.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin also talked by phone on Saturday, Interfax news agency and the Pentagon said.

Also on Saturday, the Russian military said it had used "appropriate means" to make a U.S. submarine depart from Russian waters in the far east after the vessel ignored a Russian request to leave, Interfax news agency reported.

The submarine was detected near the Pacific Kuril islands in Russia's waters as Russia conducted naval exercises, the military was quoted as saying.

Putin, jostling for influence in post-Cold War Europe, is seeking security guarantees from Biden to block Kyiv's entry into NATO and missile deployments near Russia's borders.

Washington regards many of the proposals as non-starters but has pushed the Kremlin to discuss them jointly with Washington and its European allies.

Still, Biden has long believed that one-on-one engagement with Putin may be the best chance at a resolution. Two calls in December between Biden and Putin produced no breakthroughs but set the stage for diplomacy between their aides. The two leaders have not spoken since, and diplomats from both sides have struggled to find common ground.

Four-way talks in Berlin between Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France on Thursday made no progress.

Several thousand Ukrainians rallied in Kyiv on Saturday to show unity amid fears of an invasion, as Ukraine's leader told people not to panic and pushed back against what he said was a glut of bleak war predictions being reported in the media.

Still, Washington planned to send 3,000 extra troops to Poland, Ukraine's western neighbor, in coming days to try to help reassure NATO allies, four U.S. officials told Reuters. They are in addition to 8,500 already on alert for deployment to Europe if needed.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Idrees Ali, Simon Lewis, Vladimir Soldatkin, Pavel Polityuk, Valentyn Ogirenko, Mike Stone, Makini Brice and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Trevor Hunnicutt and Frances Kerry, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Daniel Wallis)

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