President Joe Biden welcomed an “in principle” meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on what could represent the last attempt to negotiate tensions around Ukraine and a possible solution to the Moscow-led attack.
White House correspondent Jen Psaki said Sunday night that the meeting between the two world leaders will take place after a meeting between Foreign Minister Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The meeting is scheduled for this weekend.
Psaki noted that an agreement had been reached in Moscow to end the attack.
“As the president reiterated, we are committed to continuing diplomacy until the attack begins,” Psaki said in a statement. “President Biden welcomes the meeting with President Putin after this merger, once again, if there is no attack. We are always ready for diplomacy.”
The news of the dichotomy between Biden and Putin is a warning to the White House that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could come at any time. A few weeks ago, Moscow built its army on the northern and eastern borders of the Soviet neighbors, and the number of Russian troops has recently risen to 190,000.
The threat of a Russian invasion has kept global markets afloat in recent weeks as oil prices rise and inventories fall.
The broad S&P 500, which follows a comparison of large U.S. companies, fell 3.69% in February, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 4.8%. Crude oil futures in West Texas rose 4.2% last month.
The possibility of a close controversy forced Biden to start Sunday and abandon his plans to return home to Delaware after a two-hour meeting with his national security team.
An extraordinary meeting of the National Security Council on Sunday began in the afternoon and lasted more than two hours from the White House, according to journalists who had seen them coming and going. The emergency cancellation of the president’s weekend holiday plan has increased in importance in recent days as the leadership has relied on Russia’s upcoming attack.
Biden spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron, who rose to prominence between the United States and Russia over the weekend. Macron’s office said the French president spoke this week with Biden, Putin, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
So far, Moscow has stressed that it has no plans to invade Ukraine and that its troops in Belarus are ready to conduct military exercises next week.
Despite U.S. concerns that Russia could strike at any time, the White House also confirmed that there is still room for dialogue. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg missed an opportunity to make peace when he spoke with Hadley Gamble at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
“They have all the power at their disposal, Russia, to launch an attack on Ukraine without warning. No one is denying that Russia has all these powers,” Stoltenberg said. “The question is, will they start attacking?”
The news came when Russian forces launched a bomb demonstration on Saturday, an event the Kremlin called a “planned military defense operation.”