Amid its tensest standoff with the West since the Cold War, Russia plans to give its nuclear weapons apparatus a practice run this weekend. The multiple practice launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and cruise missiles set for Saturday follow a warning from U.S. President Joe Biden that Russia could invade Ukraine within days. NATO says Russian President Vladimir Putin has failed to keep his promises of withdrawing some of an estimated 150,000 troops assembled around Ukraine’s borders, dashing hopes for an imminent de-escalation of the crisis. The Kremlin insists it has no plans to invade. The United States and other alliance members are keeping up the diplomatic pressure to deter a possible invasion of Ukraine. Biden is due to discuss Russia and Ukraine with trans-Atlantic leaders in a Friday phone call. Vice President Kamala Harris is also taking a front seat. She is attending the annual Munich Security Conference this weekend in Germany, where she aims to cement the unity of Washington’s European allies. Read: In Ukraine’s volatile east, a day of shelling, outages, fear U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also be there - but Russian officials won’t. Here’s a look at what is happening where and why: WHAT’S GOING ON AT THE KREMLIN? The Kremlin says Putin will watch drills involving Russia’s strategic nuclear forces from the situation room at the Russian Defense Ministry. The Defense Ministry said Putin will personally oversee Saturday’s display of his country’s nuclear might. Notably, the planned exercise involves the Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Meanwhile, NATO is beefing up its eastern regions. The U.S. has begun deploying 5,000 troops to Poland and Romania. The Biden administration announced Friday it has approved a $6 billion sale of 250 Abrams battle tanks and related equipment to Poland. Britain is sending hundreds of soldiers to Poland and offering more warships and planes. It also is doubling the number of personnel in Estonia and sending tanks and armored fighting vehicles. Germany, Norway and the Netherlands are sending additional troops to Lithuania. The Dutch government also is sending to Ukraine 100 sniper rifles, combat helmets and body armor, two mine detection robots and weapon-detection radar systems. WHAT ARE THE DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS TO PREVENT WAR? The White House says Biden will have a phone call Friday afternoon with trans-Atlantic leaders. The Canadian prime minister’s office says the call will include the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, the European Union and NATO. Biden made some grim warnings Thursday, saying Washington detected more Russian troops moving toward the border with Ukraine. Vice President Harris indicated the alliance’s approach to the crisis would continue. “We remain, of course, open to and desirous of diplomacy, as it relates to the dialogue and the discussions we have had with Russia,” Harris said in Munich. “But we are also committed, if Russia takes aggressive action, to ensure there will be severe consequences in terms of the sanctions we have discussed,” she said at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed regret that Russian leaders declined to attend the Munich security conference, which provides a forum for discussion. “Particularly in the current, extremely threatening situation, it would have been important to also meet Russian representatives in Munich,” Baerbock said. Even tiny steps toward peace would be “better than a big step toward war,” she added. Speaking to French broadcaster LCI on Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: “Everything is possible, a massive Russian intervention but also a (continuing) diplomatic discussion.” WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE GROUND? Biden said at the White House on Thursday that the U.S. has reason to believe Russia is “engaged in a false flag operation” to give it a pretext to invade Ukraine. And there are plenty of hotspots and potential flashpoints around Ukraine that could trigger a full-scale military engagement. Some observers are concerned the nearly 8-year-old separatist conflict simmering in eastern Ukraine could provide the needed cover for Moscow. Separatist-controlled areas, where some 14,000 people have died in the fighting since 2014, saw intensified shelling and apparent cyberattacks over the past two days. The Russia-backed separatists said Friday that they planned to evacuate civilians to Russia. Read:Allies watch for Kremlin attempt to justify Ukraine invasion A group of international monitors in eastern Ukraine that is tasked with keeping the peace, reported more than 500 explosions in the 24 hours ending Thursday midday. Early Friday, separatist authorities in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions reported more shelling by Ukrainian forces along the tense line of contact. Ukrainian officials charged that the rebels intensified the shelling in the hopes of provoking a retaliatory attack by government forces. “There have been many escalations, illegal weapons, artillery and more” in the past 24 hours, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said Friday. “It is impressive what the Ukrainians have also managed to do, to hold back in relation to the provocations they are exposed to on a daily basis,” Denmark’s Ekstra Bladet newspaper quoted him as saying.

With East-West tensions at their highest point since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday the world is probably a more dangerous place now than during the Cold War. Guterres warned that a small mistake or miscommunication between major powers could have catastrophic consequences. Read: Allies watch for Kremlin attempt to justify Ukraine invasion “I am often asked whether we are in a new Cold War,” Guterres said in his opening speech at an annual security conference in Munich. “My answer is that the threat to global security now is more complex and probably higher than at that time.” During the decades-long standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 20th century, “there were mechanisms that enabled the protagonists to calculate risks and use back-channels to prevent crises,” Guterres said. “Today, many of those systems no longer exist and most of the people trained to use them are no longer here with us.” But he said he still believes the buildup of Russian troops around Ukraine won’t result in a military conflict. “I urge all parties to be extremely careful with their rhetoric. Public statements should aim to reduce tensions, not inflame them,” Guterres said. Read: NATO: Russia misleads world on troop movements near Ukraine While U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were attending the Munich Security Conference, there was no senior official present from Russia. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the Russians missed an opportunity. “Particularly in the current, extremely threatening situation it would have been important to also meet Russian representatives in Munich,” she said in a statement ahead of the conference. Even tiny steps toward peace would be “better than a big step toward war.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Thursday against letting tensions in the Asian-Pacific region cause a relapse into a Cold War mentality. His remarks on the sidelines of the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum came weeks after the U.S., Britain and Australia announced a new security alliance in the region which would see Australia build nuclear submarines. China has harshly criticized the deal. Xi spoke in a pre-recorded video to a CEO Summit at APEC, which is being hosted by New Zealand in a virtual format. Xi is scheduled to participate in an online meeting with other Pacific Rim leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday. In his speech, Xi said attempts to draw boundaries in the region along ideological or geopolitical lines would fail. “The Asia-Pacific region cannot and should not relapse into the confrontation and division of the Cold War era,” Xi said. Xi also said the region should make sure to keep supply lines functioning and to continue liberalizing trade and investment. Read: At least 46 killed in Taiwanese apartment building inferno “China will remain firm in advancing reform and opening up so as to add impetus to economic development,” he said. The most pressing task in the region is to make an all-out effort to fight the pandemic and to emerge from its shadow as soon as possible, he said. Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney also spoke at the CEO summit, saying she believed that liberal democracies could improve global human rights by pressuring autocratic nations. She said businesses also needed to play a role. In all, APEC members account for nearly 3 billion people and about 60% of the world’s GDP. But deep tensions run through the unlikely group of 21 nations and territories that include the U.S., China, Taiwan, Russia, and Australia. Many of the countries in Asia endeavor to balance Chinese and U.S. influences on the economic and geopolitical fronts. Also read: China's advice to stockpile sparks speculation of Taiwan war China claims vast parts of the South China Sea and other areas and has moved to establish a military presence, building islands in some disputed areas as it asserts its historic claims. Both Taiwan and China have applied to join a Pacific Rim trade pact, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, with Beijing saying it will block Taiwan’s bid on the basis that the democratically governed island refuses to accept that it’s part of communist-ruled China. And it remains unclear whether all APEC members will support a bid by the U.S. to host the 2023 round of APEC meetings. New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said Wednesday that APEC was founded on consensus and that there was not yet a confirmed host for 2023. Officials say they have made significant progress during some 340 preliminary meetings leading up to this week’s leaders’ meeting. APEC members have agreed to reduce or eliminate many tariffs and border holdups on vaccines, masks and other medical products important to fighting the pandemic.

China’s U.N. ambassador expressed hope Tuesday that President Joe Biden will translate his statement that the United States has no intention of starting a “new Cold War” with China into actions, saying he should avoid “a confrontational approach” and “provocative attacks against China." “We sincerely hope the U.S. will walk the walk by truly abandoning the Cold War mentality,” Zhang Jun said in a virtual press conference following the annual meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, which ended Monday. "I believe that if both sides walked towards each other, they will be able to see a healthy and stable China-U.S. relationship,” he said. “Otherwise, the concerns will remain there.” Read:Russia says it’s in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned just ahead of the week-long meeting that the world could be plunged into a new and more dangerous Cold War if China and the United States didn’t repair their “completely dysfunctional” relationship. In his speech delivered to leaders in the vast assembly hall a week ago, Biden decried military conflict, insisted the U.S. is not seeking a new version of the Cold War, and stressed the urgency of working together. Hours later, in a recorded speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated his nation’s longtime policy of multilateralism. “One country’s success does not have to mean another country’s failure,” Xi said. “The world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries.” Read: China, US unveil separate big steps to fight climate change The Cold War between the Soviet Union and its East bloc allies and the United States and its Western allies began after World War II and ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. It was a clash of two nuclear-armed superpowers with rival ideologies — communism and authoritarianism on one side, capitalism and democracy on the other. Zhang called the China-U.S. relationship “extremely important:” China is the largest developing country and the U.S. is the largest developed country, and they are the world’s largest economies and permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The world benefits from a good China-U.S. relationship, and it “will also suffer from a confrontation between China and the United States,” he said. Zhang said Beijing has always called for relations between the two countries to be based on “no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation” as well as equality. However, while China is willing to cooperate with the United States, “we have to also firmly defend our sovereignty, our security and our development rise,” he said. Read:UN chief warns China, US to avoid new Cold War Zhang also called for strengthened solidarity and cooperation of the five veto-holding permanent members of the Security Council which bear primary responsibility for ensuring world peace and security. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that the major powers have a “great responsibility” to negotiate and make compromises on the critical issues facing the world and that Russia is now “revitalizing” its proposal for a summit of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Russia, China, U.S., Britain and France. He said discussions are under way on specific questions for an agenda, and “we may perhaps begin with an online meeting.” Zhang said China, Russia and France have all proposed a summit of the so-called P5 powers. Discussions are still taking place and there is no decision yet, “so we will continue to work on that,” he said.

John le Carre, the spy-turned-novelist whose elegant and intricate narratives defined the Cold War espionage thriller and brought acclaim to a genre critics had once ignored, has died. He was 89.

Platinum-selling reggaeton act Gente de Zona were barred from a New Year's Eve concert in a Miami park. The mayor of Miami declared another Cuban singer persona non grata and her concert in a private club was cancelled. Fellow artists Jacob Forever y El Micha were shut out of a July 4 concert in the neighboring South Florida city of Hialeah last year.

Platinum-selling reggaeton act Gente de Zona were barred from a New Year's Eve concert in a Miami park. The mayor of Miami declared another Cuban singer persona non grata and her concert in a private club was cancelled. Fellow artists Jacob Forever y El Micha were shut out of a July 4 concert the neighboring South Florida city of Hialeah last year.