AA/Washington
US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, began a phone conversation regarding Ukraine on Saturday at 11:04 a.m. (4:04 p.m. GMT), the White House said.
The call comes amid escalating Russian-Ukrainian tensions, with Washington saying on Friday that Russia might invade Ukraine “at any time”.
The White House confirmed in a statement that the telephone conversation between the US and Russian presidents began at 11:04 a.m. (4:04 p.m. GMT).
The US Department of Defense (Pentagon), announced earlier this Saturday the withdrawal of 160 soldiers from Ukraine to “redeploy them to other European countries” (without quoting them).
The US Embassy in Kiev also ordered the withdrawal of its non-essential staff.
On Friday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “might happen at any time” and called on its citizens to leave Ukraine “immediately”, saying that his country would not conduct evacuations in the event of an invasion.
Westerners accuse Moscow of wanting to invade Ukraine, pointing to the 120,000 Russian soldiers mobilized for weeks on the border of the former Soviet republic, as well as the deployment of tanks and artillery.
Moscow denies such an intention and assures that this military deployment is a reaction once morest NATO’s “threatening” posture on its borders.
*Translated from Arabic by Majdi Ismail
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