Russian President Vladimir Putin talks to US president Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron over the weekend in a last ditch attempt to de-escalate tensions following the most urgent warnings by the US yet that an attack on Ukraine is imminent.

Biden warned Putin that the US and its allies will respond "decisively and impose swift and severe consequences" on Russia should Putin decide to invade Ukraine in the call.

The warnings that Russia could invade Russia at “any day now” came from a briefing by White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan on February 12, who went on stress that “a final decision has not been made.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted from Kyiv that if the US had new intelligence he should share it with his government. As bne IntelliNews reported from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city right on the Russian border that the situation remained calm and there were no signs or major preparations underway to face a Russian invasion.

But Ukrainians are becoming increasingly concerned with the war talk, Jock Mendoza-Wilson, the chief spokesman for System Capital Management (SCM), the holding of Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, told bne IntelliNews in a webcast on February 12, even if most don't believe an attack is imminent.

Over the weekend several thousand Ukrainians rallied in Kyiv to show unity amid fears of a Russian invasion, as Ukraine's leader told people not to panic and pushed back against what he said was a glut of bleak war predictions being reported in the media, Reuters reports.

Ukrainians marched through the centre of Kyiv in a column, chanting "Glory to Ukraine" and carrying Ukrainian flags and banners that said "Ukrainians will resist" and "Invaders must die".  

As tensions ratcheted up again to a new high the Russian ruble plummeted from RUB75 at the end of the work day on February 12 to RUB77.2 as of February 13 and the RTS stock market index sold off 80pp to 1,470, giving up all its gains in the last two weeks as tensions eased on the back of an EU diplomatic effort launched by Macron, who travelled to Moscow on February 8.

During a 60 minute telephone conversation with Biden, Putin lectured the US president that during the Cold War, the USSR and the United States were opponents, but in the 1990s they became “friends,” but Nato expanded and approached the borders of Russia, presidential aide Yury Ushakov told reporters after the call on February 12.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich also went through the history of relations between the United States, NATO and Russia - which ultimately led to the current crisis situation. The President of Russia, in particular, noted that during the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States were, of course, one hundred percent adversaries," Ushakov said.

“And, for example, in the 1990s we were supposedly friends. But even then, the United States and Nato were far from being constructive in relation to Russia. After all, it was then that the practical expansion of the scope of Nato began, it was then that new members were accepted, and the alliance approached the borders of Russia," Ushakov said as cited by Ria Novosti.

Kyiv in the dark

Several Western countries ordered their nationals out of Ukraine “before it is too late to leave,” including the US, UK Portugal, Belgium and Israel, because of the reported danger. The US has also ordered home the 150 US soldiers in Ukraine that have been training the Ukrainian army in the use of $1.5bn worth of arms and materiel Washington has sent to the Ukraine this year. However, many EU countries did not issue similar advisories, including France and Germany.

Last week Russia also announced its intention to remove some diplomats from its embassy in Kyiv due to fear of “provocations.”

And apparently despite the impending attack the White House has not informed Kyiv nor shared the new intelligence cited by Sullivan with its partners in Ukraine.

“If you or any other people have any additional information about the 100% Russian invasion in Ukraine starting on the 16th [of February], please give us this information. We work on a daily basis, receiving information from our intelligence. We are also grateful to other intelligence agencies of other countries,” Zelenskiy said on social media.

Zelenskiy ruffled feathers by holding a press conference on January 21 saying that there was no danger of an imminent attack and that the military situation with Russia has been “constant” since 2014 when hostilities broke out.

“What is the news, actually? Hasn’t this been a reality for eight years now? Didn’t the invasion start in 2014?” he asked. “These risks have existed for more than one day, and they have not become bigger,” Zelenskiy said at the time.

Zelenskiy added at the weekend that Ukraine should be prepared for any “surprises” and must rely on itself, on its government agencies, and intelligence, which, according to him, work as well as in other countries.

“We are not afraid of anyone, no panic, everything is under control,” he added, emphasising that diplomacy is the only way for de-escalation. "The best friend of our enemies is panic in our country."

The Russian Foreign Ministry made hay with the apparent disunity amongst the western allies with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova asking: “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

Zakharova added that the US has been warning of an invasion “daily for two months” and nothing has happened, adding that the Kremlin has repeatedly said it has no plans to attack Ukraine and was entitled to move troops around on its own territory as it sees fit.

“For two months [the US has] been mocking common sense and the Ukrainian people, while implementing another global provocative campaign,” Zakharova noted as cited by Tass.

Key week of diplomacy ahead

Putin also spoke with Macron for 40 minutes, who said that a key week of diplomacy lies ahead.

After Macron's call with Putin, a French presidency official told Reuters there were no indications from what Putin told Macron that Russia is preparing an offensive against Ukraine.

"We are nevertheless extremely vigilant and alert to the Russian (military) posture in order to avoid the worst," the French official said as cited by Reuters.

The UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace also played down invasion fears following a meeting with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on February 12, saying that he didn't believe an invasion was imminent but again insisted that Russia pull its troops near Ukraine’s border back.

Poignantly the Kremlin released a photo of the two men shaking hands in front of a painting that showed the leading war-time generals standing in front of a burnt out Reichstag building in including American General Dwight Eisenhower, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Russian Red Army Marshal Georgy Zhukov who united to defeat Hitler.

France currently holds the EU chairmanship and has launched its own effort to de-escalate the crisis. The talks began between Russia and the US at a meeting on January 10 in Geneva between US Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and continued with meetings of the Nato Council and Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) the same week, culminating in a meeting between Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken when the US sent a letter with its formal response to the eight point list of demands sent by the MFA in December.

However, those talks were inconclusive as the West refused to concede on Russia’s key demand to provide legal guarantees that Ukraine would “never ever” join Nato.

The EU was only indirectly involved in the first round of talks, only participating as members of the Nato Council and OSCE. However, Macron launched a second strand of EU-lead diplomacy with his trip to Moscow and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will round out that effort with trips to Kyiv on February 14 and Moscow on February 15 to continue the negotiations.

Analysts point out that following the Scholz-Putin meeting the Russian leader will have heard from all the major European powers as he has also seen Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the UK foreign minister Ben Wallace in the last week.

Putin has yet to comment on the US letter and apparently has been waiting to hear the positions of all the major western powers before declaring his response. That decision may come after the meeting with Scholz.

The Kremlin has said that if the West is not prepared to compromise on its key no Nato demand then it will take “military and technical” action in response, which could include military action.

While Scholz’s meeting with Putin will round out the top level meetings, the one diplomatic initiative that is still running is the re-launch of the Normandy Four talks that resumed at a meeting in Paris on January 27 after a two-year hiatus that could also bring the stand off to an end is the Minsk II agreement is finally implemented. A second meeting has already been held in Berlin since and the head of the presidential administration who is leading the Ukrainian delegation Andriy Yermak said that he expects the meetings to be “frequent” now.

Increasing tensions has been the launch of large-scale and unscheduled military exercises in Belarus on February 10 that involve over 30,000 Russian troops and a great deal of sophisticated hardware, nominally to “practise defending against a Nato invasion.” These combat-ready troops also threaten an invasion of Ukraine across its northern border and are only a few hours' march from the capital Kyiv. Sullivan warned in his briefing last week that one of the options the US is afraid of is the capture of Kyiv by Russian forces.