US President Joe Biden announced that he will transfer US forces to Eastern European countries that are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the near term, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of what he described as excessive panic.

"I will be sending troops to Eastern Europe and NATO countries in the near term. Not a large number" of troops, Biden told reporters as he got off the plane after returning from a tour in Pennsylvania (eastern).

In turn, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that any Russian move against Ukraine would lead to a strengthening of NATO on Russia's western borders.

Austin added - during a joint press conference with the Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley - that there is still room for diplomacy to resolve the crisis between Ukraine and Russia.

He said the United States offered Russia a diplomatic way out of the crisis.

Austin considered that the opportunity is available to diplomacy, and stressed his country's commitment to helping Ukraine defend itself, noting that Washington delivered Kiev last year security aid worth 650 million dollars.

He said that it is clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin currently has the ability to attack Ukraine, but he has not made a decision yet, adding that the outbreak of war between Ukraine and Russia is not inevitable.

Milley, for his part, stressed that the Russian military build-up on Ukraine's borders is greater than any since the Cold War, noting that if Russia launched a large-scale military attack on its western neighbor, the human cost would be horrific, as large numbers of casualties would fall in a densely populated area.

And the spokesman for the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) John Kirby said Thursday that Russia is mobilizing more combat forces in the west of the country, and in neighboring Belarus.

Washington and its allies have talked about the deployment of about 100,000 Russian soldiers on the borders of Ukraine, preparing to attack it, which Moscow denied.

Two days ago, 10 thousand Russian troops began new maneuvers in the Rostov region (southern Russia), not far from Ukraine, at a time when satellite images monitored part of the Russian crowd near the western neighbor.


excessive panic

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of what he described as excessive panic.

He said that he did not see Russia's escalation on his country's borders different from the previous one, but he called on Russia to take an initiative to contain the escalation.

In turn, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Ryzhnikov said that a fourth US arms shipment arrived in Kiev on Friday, carrying 81 tons of weapons and ammunition of various calibers, noting that his country is waiting for more planes loaded with weapons in the coming days.

During his questioning before Parliament, the Ukrainian minister indicated that the amount of military support and aid is optimistic, and that it is much more than what is published in the media.

Ryzhnikov explained that the number of anti-tank weapons in the possession of the Ukrainian army far exceeds the number of potential targets.

Russian crowd

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that Russia is continuing its military build-up and deploying thousands of its forces and the S-400 missile system in Belarus.

Stoltenberg added that Russia has not yet made its final decision to invade Ukraine, but he stressed - at a symposium organized by the Atlantic Council on the alliance's response to renewed tensions in Europe - that NATO is ready for all possibilities to deal with the existing crisis.

The Secretary-General of NATO considered that Ukraine is capable of inflicting painful military strikes on Russia.

In a remarkable position, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that his country would go to war alongside Russia when aggression occurred on its territory or on Russian territory, as he put it.

Washington had called for an open session of the UN Security Council next Monday on the crisis, after weeks of consultations with Ukraine and other countries in the Security Council.

In Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said today, Friday, that the Russian escalation is not the same as before, and that this does not mean that there will be no Russian escalation in the future, calling not to provoke the Ukrainians to panic by talking about an imminent war.


Cut the relationships

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that if the West implemented the sanctions it promised, this step would lead to a severing of relations with Russia, adding that Moscow had informed the Americans about this, considering that it was not in anyone's interest.

Lavrov continued - in radio statements - that if the matter was related to Russia, there would be no war, and stressed Moscow's choice of diplomacy, explaining that the subsequent Russian steps would be determined by the Kremlin in consultation with the military if negotiations on security guarantees failed.

Regarding these guarantees in particular, the Russian minister said that NATO's response to the Russian proposals regarding security guarantees was very ideological.

Washington had handed Moscow a written response to the Russian proposals, and Moscow had expressed its disappointment with the US response.

The Russian Foreign Ministry revealed that Moscow had proposed, on the issue of security guarantees, the return of all US nuclear weapons from NATO countries to US soil.

In the midst of tensions over Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced today, Friday, that it had been decided to prevent a number of European officials from entering Russia, while the Russian “TASS” agency quoted the Russian ambassador to the United States as saying that Washington had handed the embassy a list of 55 employees of the Russian mission who would be expelled in two stages. .

An official in the French presidency said that Putin told Macron that his country does not intend to escalate (European)

Russia's fears

Diplomatically, the Russian presidency said that Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron - in a lengthy phone call between them on Friday - that the West's response did not take into account Russia's concerns about the expansion of NATO to the east, and the deployment of missiles close to Russia.

The Kremlin added that Putin also informed Macron that the responses of Washington and NATO to the security guarantees proposals presented by Moscow did not take into account Russia's security concerns, and that the West, in its response, ignored the principle of indivisibility of security.

He added that the Russian President stressed the importance of Kiev implementing the Minsk Agreement and starting dialogue with the Donbas region, which has been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.

On the other hand, an official in the French presidency said that Macron told Putin that Russia should respect the sovereignty of its neighbors, adding that the Russian president stressed that he did not want to escalate the situation.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that US President Joe Biden plans to impose sanctions on Russian banks, companies and imports if Russia invades Ukraine.

In a call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden stressed his country, its allies and partners' readiness to respond decisively if Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia Ukraine.

separatist accusations

On the ground, the pro-Russian separatists said that the Ukrainian army is preparing a military attack on their positions in Donbass, stressing that the military plan for the attack is being prepared under the supervision of American military advisers.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the separatists of the self-declared Donetsk Republic, Natalia Vinokurova, welcomed a proposal that she said that the ruling United Russia party in Russia had submitted to provide the separatists in eastern Ukraine with military aid.


Gas supply to Europe

Meanwhile, a joint statement by US President and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Friday that they are jointly committed to Europe's energy security and sustainability.

The two parties also affirmed their commitment to work together to overcome challenges regarding security of supply and rising energy prices, and announced that they will work together to provide reliable and affordable energy to the European Union and to supply the Union with continuous and adequate natural gas from a variety of sources.

They emphasized working together to avoid gas supply shocks, including those that could arise from a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

And earlier on Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian confirmed that the sanctions to be imposed on Russia when it takes military action against Ukraine may include stopping the work of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

With the increasing tension between Ukraine and Russia, Europe's concerns are emerging about the impact on energy supplies, and its quest to find alternatives away from the Russian option.