The American-Russian video summit lasted two hours - and, as expected, the result seems poor.

At least that was evident from the brief statement released by the White House on Tuesday evening.

President Joe Biden had expressed concern to Vladimir Putin about the increase in the number of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, shared by European allies.

The President made it clear that Washington and its partners would respond "with tough economic and other measures" in the event of a military escalation.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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Friedrich Schmidt

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Biden also reiterated his support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The White House also announced that the two presidents had instructed their staff to continue the talks. Washington will do this in close consultation with its allies - after the conversation, Biden informed the French President, the Chancellor, the Italian Prime Minister and the British Prime Minister about it and discussed how to proceed, said Biden's security advisor Jake Sullivan on Tuesday. The statement after the summit read almost exactly like the many statements that the American government had made before the two presidents talked about it.

After the meeting, the Kremlin also said that they had agreed to continue the dialogue and necessary contacts with a view to the responsibility for maintaining international security and stability. In a statement distributed by the Interfax agency, it was said that the "internal Ukrainian crisis" had dominated the conversation. To Biden's allegations about the concentration of troops on the Ukrainian border, Putin replied that it was not Russia's fault, but rather NATO's fault, which was trying to “appropriate Ukrainian territory”. Putin therefore repeated his call for guarantees that NATO would not expand eastwards. It was also about keeping the “spirit” of the meeting between the two of them in Geneva in June, the conversation was “open” and had a “business-like character”.

Moscow wants to build up pressure

Washington's diplomatic initiative began a month ago when Biden dispatched his CIA director William Burns to Moscow to tell the Kremlin that they knew exactly what Russia was doing on the Ukrainian border. Last week, Foreign Minister Antony Blinken spoke of evidence of a troop deployment before a meeting with Sergei Lavrov. A little later, satellite images were released to prove this. And it was said that the intelligence services assumed that the Kremlin's plan would include a multi-front attack with up to 175,000 soldiers. A high-ranking government official made it clear again before the video summit: “To be clear: We do not know whether President Putin has made a decision on a further military escalation in Ukraine. But we knowthat he provides the capacity for such an escalation, should he decide to do so. "

And he added what Biden had been saying for days: If there were another Russian invasion, the costs would be very high. Putin would then have to reckon with "considerable economic countermeasures by both the Europeans and the United States".

While Blinken had conferred with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj by telephone before the summit, Biden exchanged views with his European allies: with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Mario Draghi and, of course, with the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will subsequently be her successor Olaf Scholz put into the picture. The group spoke about their concerns about "the Russian armament on the border with Ukraine and the increasingly harsh rhetoric of Russia," said the White House on Monday evening. Moscow has been called on to de-escalate and it has been stressed that diplomacy is the only way to resolve the conflict. After the video summit, they wanted to connect again.

The core of the conversation was probably the question of how to increase the costs for Putin if the worst comes to the worst.

Washington is not only considering sanctions against Putin's environment and the Russian energy sector.

Another option would be to exclude Russia from the international bank payment system SWIFT.