Each side sees the other as initiating threats.
The U.S. still sees the encounter as a chance to de-escalate.
MOSCOW WASHINGTON, Dec 6 Reuters Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have a chasm of mutual distrust when they hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday in the shadow of what the United States believes is a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin described relations ahead of a video conference call, which it expects to start around 1500 GMT 10 a.m. Washington accused Russia of massing troops near the border with Ukraine to intimidate an aspiring NATO member, suggesting it could be a repeat of Moscow's 2014 playbook when it seized the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine. It says the West is ready to take tough sanctions if Russia invades.
The Kremlin has rejected the idea that its forces are poised to invade as fear-mongering and has said its troops move around its own territory for purely defensive purposes.
The growing NATO embrace of a neighbouring former Soviet republic and what it sees as the nightmare possiblity of alliance missiles in Ukraine targeted against Russia is a red line it will not allow to be crossed.
Putin wants legally binding security guarantees that NATO will not expand further east or place its weapons close to Russian territory, and Washington has repeatedly said no country can veto Ukraine's NATO hopes.
Andrey Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, who is close to the Foreign Ministry, said their positions are https://www.reuters.com. Com markets commodities were ten-points - tension-between putin-biden -- 2021 -- 12 -- 06 were unlikely to be reconciled.
If it turns out to be a good conversation, the only thing they can agree on is that everyone directly or indirectly involved in the situation should show restraint and commitment to de-escalate. I don't think Biden can promise Putin that NATO will not go east. A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council said Washington wanted to avert a crisis and a negative spiral in the broader relationship through diplomacy and de-escalation.
Some Russian and U.S. analysts have suggested that the leaders could agree to set up de-escalation talks, and the Kremlin wants a new Putin-Biden summit next year.
A Biden administration official told Reuters that the United States believed a military offensive could occur as soon as early 2022 involving 175,000 troops, armoured units, and artillery, despite U.S. officials saying they do not know Putin's intentions towards Ukraine.
The U.S. estimated that half of the Russian units were already close to the Ukrainian border, the same official said.
The United States offered last week to mediate between Russia and Ukraine on the basis of the Minsk agreements to end the seven-year old war between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists. Moscow has no objections to that in principle, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
But Vladimir Frolov, a foreign policy analyst and former Russian diplomat in the United States, said drawing Washington into the process would look like a defeat for Moscow. He was not confident that Putin would settle for a vague promise of talks on the future security architecture of Europe.
By demanding legally binding guarantees, Moscow has narrowed the room for manoeuvre for its diplomacy, which kind of tells you that they are not really betting on diplomacy to succeed, Frolov said.
In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine's armed forces were capable of fighting off any attack from Russia. The country marked its national army day on Monday with a display of U.S. armoured vehicles and patrol boats.
People interviewed on the streets of the Ukrainian capital had mixed expectations of Tuesday's talks.
We believe that Biden is a big friend of our country. Volodymyr Pylypyuk, 71, said he has so far proved himself as a person who sincerely wants to help Ukraine out of this senseless situation.
Ruslan Lapuk, a 28-year-old bartender, saw little chance of a breakthrough. He said that we have nobody to count on but our own forces, first of all.
Vladimir Bulatov, 61, told Reuters in Moscow that the leaders should talk about reducing the risk of a war, but he doubted whether it was possible. I don't believe anything sensible will come out of this meeting. Elena, a pensioner interviewed in the conflict region of eastern Ukraine, said she was pinning her hopes on a halt to shelling.
Things have to change, that's what we are hoping for, she said. We have no more strength to endure this.