Biden sees chance for Ukraine diplomacy, keeps pressure on Moscow

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are seen ahead of their meeting over Ukraine security at the Kremlin, in Moscow, on February 15, 2022

The Russian defence ministry released images of tanks departing by train after concluding military exercises

US President Joe Biden vowed Tuesday to push for a diplomatic resolution of the Ukraine crisis, but warned that a Russian invasion remained "very much a possibility" and that retaliatory sanctions were primed and ready.

Biden said that despite Russian claims earlier in the day, Washington and its allies had yet to verify the withdrawal of any of the 150,000 troops he says Moscow has now mustered along Ukraine's border.

"The United States is prepared no matter what happens," the US leader said.

Earlier, Moscow's defense ministry announced some soldiers and hardware were leaving the border region to return to their bases at the end of planned exercises.

"We are ready to work further together. We are ready to go down the negotiations track," Putin told a joint press conference with Scholz, confirming a "partial pullback of troops."

Scholz called the Russian announcement "a good sign," but Washington said it wanted proof of a de-escalation, after warning over the weekend that Russian troops were poised to invade Ukraine as soon as this week.

Biden, who spoke directly with Putin on Saturday, said there were "real ways" to address both sides' security concerns.

In answer to Putin's concerns that Ukraine would try to join NATO, and that the alliance would place more strategic weapons on Russia's borders, Biden said the United States had put forward "concrete ideas to establish a security environment in Europe."

He noted that Russia is not being threatened by the United States, NATO or Ukraine.

- 'Absurd' situation-

After meeting Putin, he told German reporters that Ukraine is not about to join the NATO alliance.

"Everyone has to take a step back and realize that we cannot have a military conflict over a question that is not on the agenda," he said, saying that such a situation would be "absurd."

Kyiv remained tense after a series of cyberattacks shut down the websites of the country's defense ministry and armed forces as well as two state banks.

The affected sites included the Oschadbank state savings bank and Privat -- two of the country's largest financial institutions.

The defense ministry site showed an error message saying it was "undergoing technical maintenance."

The two regions, Donetsk and Lugansk, have large Russian-speaking, pro-Moscow populations that have been locked in a deadly fight with Kyiv since 2014, with the conflict claiming some 14,000 lives.

Russia already controls the Crimean Peninsula that it seized from Ukraine in 2014.

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