The Kremlin warned Wednesday that increasing the supply of U.S. arms to Ukraine would aggravate the devastating 10-month war ignited by Russia’s invasion, and Russia’s defense minister called for expanding Moscow’s military by at least 500,000 troops. Speaking during a meeting with his top military brass, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would use lessons learned in the conflict to “develop our armed forces and strengthen the capability of our troops.” He said special emphasis would go to developing nuclear forces, which he described as “the main guarantee of Russia’s sovereignty.” Putin also said the Russian military’s new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile would enter service shortly. The Sarmat is intended to replace aging Soviet-built ballistic missiles and form the core of Russia’s nuclear forces. Putin has hailed its capacity to dodge missile defenses. The bullish rhetoric from Moscow came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Joe Biden in Washington, where U.S. officials announced a huge new military aid package for Kyiv. The $1.8 billion package includes for the first time a Patriot missile battery and precision guided bombs for fighter jets, U.S. officials said. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the beefed-up Russian military will include 695,000 volunteer contract soldiers, 521,000 of whom would be recruited by the end of 2023. The Russian military had about 400,000 contract soldiers as part of its 1 million-member military before the fighting in Ukraine began. All Russian men ages 18 to 27 are obliged to serve in the military for one year, but many use college deferments and health exemptions to avoid the draft. Shoigu said the draft age range would be changed to 21- to 30-years-old, and the recruits would be offered a choice of serving for one year as draftees or signing a contract with the military as volunteers. He also said Russia would form new units in the country’s west in view of ambitions by Finland and Sweden to join NATO. The Kremlin’s plans marked a return to the Soviet-era military structure, which Russia abandoned during recent reforms that saw the creation of smaller units. Some Russian military experts have argued the more compact units intended for use in local conflicts were undermanned and underequipped for a massive conflict like the action in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the expansion of Western weapon supplies to Ukraine has led to “an aggravation of the conflict and, in fact, does not bode well for Ukraine.” Peskov’s comments were the first official Russian reaction to news that Zelenskyy was in Washington for his first known foreign trip since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion triggered the war that has killed thousands and laid waste to towns and cities across Ukraine. The announcement of the new U.S. military aid came just hours before Zelenskyy paid a visit to the White House to thank U.S. leaders and “ordinary Americans” for their support in fighting off the invaders and to press for continued aid. Read more: Russia-Ukraine War: US estimates 200,000 military deaths, injuries on both sides Biden said the U.S. and Ukraine would continue to project a “united defense” as Russia wages a “brutal assault on Ukraine’s right to exist as a nation.” Later, in a historic address to Congress aimed at sustaining U.S. and allied aid for Ukraine’s defense, Zelenskyy thanked “every American” for their support of his country. Zelenskyy called U.S. support vital to Ukraine’s efforts to beat back Russia, and thanked lawmakers and everyday citizens for tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance over the last year. The Ukrainian leader predicted that next year would be a “turning point” in the conflict, “when Ukrainian courage and American resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom — the freedom of people who stand for their values.” Moscow also was involved in high-level diplomacy. The deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, met Wednesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Medvedev, a former Russian president, said in a video statement that he and Xi discussed an array of topics, including “the conflict in Ukraine.” Medvedev did not elaborate. China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and criticized sanctions against Moscow. Beijing has only referred to the invasion as the “Ukraine situation” in deference to Moscow, and accused the U.S. and NATO of provoking Putin by expanding into eastern Europe. In other developments Wednesday, Dmitry Rogozin, the former Russian deputy prime minister and one-time head of the state space agency Roscosmos, was wounded during Ukrainian shelling of a hotel in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. Rogozin, who joined the Russian troops in Ukraine as a volunteer, told Russian state-controlled RT that a shell fragment missed his spine by just a centimeter (0.4 inches). Russian news agencies quoted Rogozin’s aide as saying that he was hospitalized, but his life wasn’t in danger. Russian messaging app channels said Rogozin was celebrating his birthday at a restaurant when it was hit. Several other people, including the Moscow-appointed head of the regional government in Donetsk, were also wounded. Russia annexed the Donetsk region along with three other regions of Ukraine in September. Elsewhere, Russian forces pounded populated areas with more missiles and artillery. They shelled areas around the city of Nikopol in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, its governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, said Wednesday on Telegram. Nikopol is across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Russian forces currently occupy the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station. The Ukrainian president’s office reported Wednesday that Russian attacks on Tuesday killed five civilians and wounded 17. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russia unleashed five missiles and 16 airstrikes on Ukrainian territory and 61 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems. General Staff spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun said Ukrainian forces repelled attacks around more than 25 populated areas in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, with the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka continuing to be key targets of Russia’s grinding offensive. The bodies of seven civilians, including a teenage girl, were found in a mass grave in the village of Pravdyne in southern Ukraine’s Kherson province, the Ukrainian defense minister said Wednesday. The village was held by Russian forces from March until early November. Read more: Impact of Russia-Ukraine War on Asia’s climate goals “They simply kill,” Oleksii Reznikov wrote on Twitter. He said that as, of Dec. 21, the bodies of about 500 civilians who died during the Russian occupation have been found in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv province.

As the war in Ukraine drags on, the cost of rebuilding the country and its economy has risen dramatically. Russia's invasion caused over $97 billion in direct damages to Ukraine between February 24 and June 1, but it could cost nearly $350 billion to rebuild the country, according to a new report jointly compiled by the World Bank, the European Commission and the Ukrainian government. But the figure, which totals 1.5 times the 2021 size of the Ukrainian economy, is considered a minimum and is expected to grow in the coming months as the war continues, the report said. The impact of the invasion will be felt for generations, with families displaced and separated, disruptions to human development, destruction of intrinsic cultural heritage and reversal of a positive economic and poverty trajectory, it added. Read: Six months on, Ukraine fights war, faces painful aftermath The report also estimates that over the next 36 months $105 billion will be needed to address urgent needs such as restoring education and health systems and infrastructure, preparing for the upcoming winter through the restoration of heating and energy to homes, support to agriculture, and repair of vital transport routes. It offered the first comprehensive damage assessment of the war's impact on Ukraine and laid the groundwork for funding its recovery plan, Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said. "After all, only for the first stage, rapid recovery, $17 billion is needed, of which Ukraine needs $3.4 billion already this year," he added.

A surge in fighting on the southern front line and a Ukrainian claim of new attacks on Russian positions fed speculation Tuesday that a long-expected counteroffensive to try to turn the tide of war has started. Officials in Kyiv, though, warned against excessive optimism in a war that has seen similar expectations of changing fortunes before. Even though independent verification of battlefield moves has been extremely tough, the British defense ministry said in an intelligence report that, as of early Monday, “several brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces increased the weight of artillery fires in front line sectors across southern Ukraine.” Attention centered on potential damage Ukraine might have inflicted on Russian positions around the port city of Kherson, a major economic hub close to the Black Sea and one of Moscow's prized possessions since it started the invasion just over half a year ago. Ukraine’s presidential office reported Tuesday that “powerful explosions continued during the day and night in the Kherson region. Tough battles are ongoing practically across all” of the strategic area. Ukrainian forces, the report said, have destroyed a number of ammunition depots in the region and all large bridges across the Dnieper that are vital to bring supplies to the Russian troops. Russian state news agency Tass reported five explosions rocking Kherson on Tuesday morning — blasts likely caused by air defense systems at work. The Ukrainian military’s Operation Command South also reported destroying a pontoon crossing the Dnieper that the Russian forces were setting up and hitting a dozen command posts in several areaas of the Kherson region with artillery fire. “The most important thing is Ukrainian artillery’s work on the bridges, which the Russian military can no longer use," Ukrainian independent military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press. “Even the barges have been destroyed. The Russians can’t sustain forces near Kherson — this is the most important.” On Monday, the southern command center's Nataliya Gumenyuik told Ukrainian news outlet Liga.Net that Kyiv’s forces have launched offensive operations “in many directions in our area of responsibility and have breached the enemy’s first line of defense.” The statement quickly made headlines after weeks of reports that Ukraine forces were preparing an offensive there and as Ukrainian attacks on the Kherson region intensified. Read: UN agency to inspect Ukraine nuclear plant in urgent mission Zhdanov said that Russia has three lines of defense in the Kherson region, and breaching the first one signals only “isolated offensive actions by the Ukrainian army.” The war has ground to a stalemate over the past months with casualties rising and the local population bearing the brunt of suffering during relentless shelling in the east and also in the wider area around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant which has also been at the heart of fighting in Ukraine. Amid fears the plant could be damaged, leading to a radioactive leak, a U.N. nuclear watchdog team has arrived in Kyiv and is further preparing a mission to safeguard the Russian-occupied plant from nuclear catastrophe. The stakes couldn’t be higher for the International Atomic Energy Agency experts, who will visit the plant in a country where the 1986 Chernobyl disaster spewed radiation throughout the region, shocking the world and intensifying a global push away from nuclear energy. “Without an exaggeration, this mission will be the hardest in the history of IAEA,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Compounding an already complicated task is the inability of both sides in the war to agree on much beyond allowing the team to go there. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the wider region around the nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, time and again. Nikopol, which is just across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia plant, once again came under a barrage of heavy shelling, local authorities said, with a bus station, stores and a children’s library sustaining damage. The dangers of an accident are now so high that officials have begun handing out anti-radiation iodine tablets to nearby residents. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to speculation about whether his forces had launched a major counteroffensive by asking in his nightly video address Monday, “Anyone want to know what our plans are? You won’t hear specifics from any truly responsible person. Because this is war.” His adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, cautioned against “super-sensational announcements” about a counteroffensive. From the other side, the Moscow-appointed regional leader of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, dismissed the Ukrainian assertion of an offensive in the Kherson region as false. He said Ukrainian forces have suffered heavy losses in the area. And For its part, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had inflicted heavy personnel and military equipment losses on Ukrainian troops. The Kherson region is just north of the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 to set off a conflict that was frozen until the Feb. 24 invasion.

With thousands of sanctions already imposed on Russia to flatten its economy, the U.S. and its allies are working on new measures to starve the Russian war machine while also stopping the price of oil and gasoline from soaring to levels that could crush the global economy. The Kremlin’s main pillar of financial revenue — oil — has kept the Russian economy afloat despite export bans, sanctions and the freezing of central bank assets. European allies of the U.S. plan to follow the Biden administration and take steps to stop their use of Russian oil by the end of this year, a move that some economists say could cause the supply of oil worldwide to drop and push prices as high as $200 a barrel. That risk has the U.S. and its allies seeking to establish a buyer’s cartel to control the price of Russian oil. Group of Seven leaders have tentatively agreed to back a cap on the price of Russian oil. Simply speaking, participating countries would agree to purchase the oil at lower-than-market price. High energy costs are already straining economies and threatening fissures among the countries opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine in February. President Joe Biden has seen his public approval slip to levels that hurt Democrats’ chances in the midterm elections, while leaders in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy are coping with the economic devastation caused by trying to move away from Russian natural gas and petroleum. The idea behind the cap is to lower gas prices for consumers and help bring the war in Ukraine to a halt. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is currently touring Indo-Pacific countries to lobby for the proposal. In Japan on Tuesday, Yellen and Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki Shunichi said in a joint statement that the countries have agreed to explore “the feasibility of price caps where appropriate.” However, China and India, two countries that have maintained business relationships with Russia during the war, will need to get on board. The administration is confident China and India, already buying from Russia at discounted prices, can be enticed to embrace the plan for price caps. “We think that ultimately countries around the world that are currently purchasing Russian oil will be very interested in paying as little as possible for that Russian oil,” Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo told The Associated Press. The Russian price cap plan has support among some leading economic thinkers. Harvard economist Jason Furman tweeted that if the plan works, it would be a “win-win: maximizing damage to the Russian war machine while minimizing damage to the rest of the world.” And David Wessel at the Brookings Institution said an “ unpleasant alternative ” is not attempting the price cap plan. If a price cap is not implemented, oil prices will almost certainly spike due to a European Union decision to ban nearly all oil from Russia. The EU also plans to ban insuring and financing the maritime transport of Russian oil to third parties by the end of the year. Without a price cap mechanism to reduce some Russian revenues, “there would be a greater risk that some Russian supply comes off the market. That could lead to higher prices, which would increase prices for Americans,” Adeyemo said. Read: Biden heads to Mideast jittery about Iranian nuclear program A June Barclay’s report warns that with the EU oil embargo and other restrictions in place, Russian oil could rise to $150 per barrel or even $200 per barrel if most of its sea-borne exports are disrupted. Brent crude on Tuesday was trading just under $100 per barrel. James Hamilton, an economist at the University of California, San Diego, said garnering the participation of China and India will be important to enforcing any price cap plan. “It’s an international diplomatic challenge on how you get people to agree. It’s one thing if you get the U.S. to stop buying oil, but if India and China continue to buy” at elevated prices, “there’s no impact on Russian revenues,” Hamilton told the AP. “The less revenue Russia gets from selling oil, the less money they have to send these bombs on Ukraine,” he said. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said during a Monday news briefing that “if it turns out that countries are imposing their own price cap and it is a substantial denial of revenue to Russia in terms of their ability to sell oil, that is not the failure of sanctions. That’s actually the success of economic pressure because it is driving down revenues for Moscow.” One possibility is that Russia could retaliate and take its oil off the market completely. Watch: In that case, “the main question is will countries have enough time to find alternatives” to prevent massive price increases, said Christiane Baumeister, an economist at the University of Notre Dame who studies the dynamics of energy markets. With five months until the end of the year, when EU bans begin to take effect, a Russian price cap plan would likely need to be in place and operating effectively to avoid further spikes in gas prices that have frustrated U.S. drivers. Biden has warned that high gas prices this summer were the cost of stopping Putin, but prices could climb to new records and lead to economic and political pain for the president. Without the price cap, “if the EU import ban goes into effect together with the insurance ban,” Baumeister said, the impacts “will be passed onto consumers through gasoline prices.”

Russia pressed its invasion of Ukraine to the outskirts of the capital Friday after unleashing airstrikes on cities and military bases and sending in troops and tanks from three sides in an attack that could rewrite the global post-Cold War security order. Explosions sounded before dawn in Kyiv as Western leaders scheduled an emergency meeting and Ukraine's president pleaded for international help. The nature of the explosions was not immediately clear, but the blasts came amid signs that the capital and largest Ukrainian city was increasingly threatened following a day of fighting that left more than 100 Ukrainians dead. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the government had information that “subversive groups” were encroaching on the city, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Kyiv “could well be under siege" in what U.S. officials believe is a brazen attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to dismantle the government and install his own regime. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers on a phone call that Russian mechanized forces that entered from Belarus were about 20 miles from Kyiv, according to a person familiar with the call. The assault, anticipated for weeks by the U.S. and Western allies and undertaken by Putin in the face of international condemnation and cascading sanctions, amounts to the largest ground war in Europe since World War II. Also read: Explosions heard in Kyiv early Friday as Russia presses Ukraine assault Russian missiles bombarded cities and military bases in the first day of the attack, and Ukraine officials said they had lost control of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Civilians piled into trains and cars to flee. As explosions sounded in Kyiv early Friday, guests of a hotel were directed to a makeshift basement shelter. Air raid sirens also went off. “Russia has embarked on a path of evil, but Ukraine is defending itself and won’t give up its freedom,” Zelenskyy tweeted. His grasp on power increasingly tenuous, he called Thursday for even more severe sanctions than the ones imposed by Western allies and ordered a full military mobilization that would last 90 days. Zelenskyy said in a video address that 137 “heroes,” including 10 military officers, had been killed and 316 people wounded. The dead included border guards on the Zmiinyi Island in the Odesa region, which was taken over by Russians. He concluded an emotional speech by saying that “the fate of the country depends fully on our army, security forces, all of our defenders.” He also said the country had heard from Moscow that ”they want to talk about Ukraine’s neutral status." Biden was to meet Friday morning with fellow leaders of NATO governments in what the White House described as an “extraordinary virtual summit” to discuss Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden announced new sanctions against Russia, saying Putin “chose this war” and had exhibited a “sinister” view of the world in which nations take what they want by force. Other nations also announced sanctions, or said they would shortly. “It was always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire by any means necessary — by bullying Russia’s neighbors through coercion and corruption, by changing borders by force, and, ultimately, by choosing a war without a cause,” Biden said. Blinken said in television interviews that he was convinced that Russia was intent on overthrowing the Ukrainian government, telling CBS that Putin wants to “reconstitute the Soviet empire" and that Kyiv was already “under threat, and it could well be under siege.” Fearing a Russian attack on the capital city, thousands of people went deep underground as night fell, jamming Kyiv's subway stations. Also read: Chernobyl no-go zone targeted as Russia invades Ukraine At times it felt almost cheerful. Families ate dinner. Children played. Adults chatted. People brought sleeping bags or dogs or crossword puzzles — anything to alleviate the waiting and the long night ahead. But the exhaustion was clear on many faces. And the worries. “Nobody believed that this war would start and that they would take Kyiv directly,” said Anton Mironov, waiting out the night in one of the old Soviet metro stations. “I feel mostly fatigue. None of it feels real.” The invasion began early Thursday with a series of missile strikes, many on key government and military installations, quickly followed by a three-pronged ground assault. Ukrainian and U.S. officials said Russian forces were attacking from the east toward Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city; from the southern region of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014; and from Belarus to the north. The Ukrainian military on Friday reported significant fighting in the area of Ivankiv, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Kyiv, as Russian forces apparently tried to advance on the capital from the north. It said one bridge across a small river had been destroyed. “The hardest day will be today. The enemy’s plan is to break through with tank columns from the side of Ivankiv and Chernihiv to Kyiv. Russian tanks burn perfectly when hit by our ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles),” Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said on Telegram. Zelenskyy, who had earlier cut diplomatic ties with Moscow and declared martial law, appealed to global leaders, saying that “if you don’t help us now, if you fail to offer a powerful assistance to Ukraine, tomorrow the war will knock on your door.” Though Biden said he had no plans to speak with Putin, the Russian leader did have what the Kremlin described as a “serious and frank exchange" with French President Emmanuel Macron. Both sides claimed to have destroyed some of the other's aircraft and military hardware, though little of that could be confirmed. Hours after the invasion began, Russian forces seized control of the now-unused Chernobyl plant and its surrounding exclusion zone after a fierce battle, presidential adviser Myhailo Podolyak told The Associated Press. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said it was told by Ukraine of the takeover, adding that there had been “no casualties or destruction at the industrial site.” The 1986 disaster occurred when a nuclear reactor at the plant 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Kyiv exploded, sending a radioactive cloud across Europe. The damaged reactor was later covered by a protective shell to prevent leaks. Alyona Shevtsova, adviser to the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, wrote on Facebook that staff members at the Chernobyl plant had been “taken hostage." The White House said it was “outraged” by reports of the detentions. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense issued an update saying that though the plant was “likely captured,” the country's forces had halted Russia's advance toward Chernihiv and that it was unlikely that Russia had achieved its planned Day One military objectives. The chief of the NATO alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said the “brutal act of war" shattered peace in Europe, joining a chorus of world leaders decrying an attack that could cause massive casualties and topple Ukraine’s democratically elected government. The conflict shook global financial markets: Stocks plunged and oil prices soared amid concerns that heating bills and food prices would skyrocket. Condemnation came not only from the U.S. and Europe, but from South Korea, Australia and beyond — and many governments readied new sanctions. Even friendly leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban sought to distance themselves from Putin. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he aimed to cut off Russia from the U.K.’s financial markets as he announced sanctions, freezing the assets of all large Russian banks and planning to bar Russian companies and the Kremlin from raising money on British markets. “Now we see him for what he is — a bloodstained aggressor who believes in imperial conquest,” Johnson said of Putin. The U.S. sanctions will target Russian banks, oligarchs, state-controlled companies and high-tech sectors, Biden said, but they were designed not to disrupt global energy markets. Russian oil and natural gas exports are vital energy sources for Europe. Zelenskyy urged the U.S. and West to go further and cut the Russians from the SWIFT system, a key financial network that connects thousands of banks around the world. The White House has been reluctant to immediately cut Russia from SWIFT, worried it could cause enormous economic problems in Europe and elsewhere in the West. While some nervous Europeans speculated about a possible new world war, the U.S. and its NATO partners have shown no indication they would send troops into Ukraine, fearing a larger conflict. NATO reinforced its members in Eastern Europe as a precaution, and Biden said the U.S. was deploying additional forces to Germany to bolster NATO. European authorities declared the country’s airspace an active conflict zone. After weeks of denying plans to invade, Putin launched the operation on a country the size of Texas that has increasingly tilted toward the democratic West and away from Moscow’s sway. The autocratic leader made clear earlier this week that he sees no reason for Ukraine to exist, raising fears of possible broader conflict in the vast space that the Soviet Union once ruled. Putin denied plans to occupy Ukraine, but his ultimate goals remain hazy. Ukrainians were urged to shelter in place and not to panic. “Until the very last moment, I didn’t believe it would happen. I just pushed away these thoughts,” said a terrified Anna Dovnya in Kyiv, watching soldiers and police remove shrapnel from an exploded shell. “We have lost all faith.” With social media amplifying a torrent of military claims and counter-claims, it was difficult to determine exactly what was happening on the ground. Russia and Ukraine made competing claims about damage they had inflicted. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had destroyed scores of Ukrainian air bases, military facilities and drones. It confirmed the loss of one of its Su-25 attack jets, blaming “pilot error,” and said an An-26 transport plane had crashed because of technical failure, killing the entire crew. It did not say how many were aboard. Russia said it was not targeting cities, but journalists saw destruction in many civilian areas.

Face to face for just over two hours, President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin squared off in a secure video call Tuesday as the U.S. president put Moscow on notice that an invasion of Ukraine would bring enormous harm to the Russian economy. The highly anticipated call between the two leaders came amid growing worries by the U.S. and Western allies about Russia’s threat to neighboring Ukraine. Putin came into the meeting seeking guarantees from Biden that the NATO military alliance will never expand to include Ukraine, which has long sought membership. The Americans and their NATO allies said in advance that Putin’s request was a non-starter. The White House said in a statement that Biden voiced “deep concerns” during the call about Russia’s troop buildup along the Ukraine border and made clear that the U.S. and allies would respond with “strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation.” Biden also reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. As the U.S. and Russian presidents conferred, Ukrainian officials grew only more anxious about the tens of thousands of Russia troops that have been deployed near their border. Just hours before the start of the Biden-Putin video call, Ukrainian officials charged Russia had further escalated the smoldering crisis by sending tanks and snipers to war-torn eastern Ukraine to “provoke return fire” and lay a pretext for a potential invasion. U.S. intelligence officials have not been able to independently verify that accusation, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. But the official said that the White House has directly raised concerns with the Russians about “resorting to their old playbook” by trying to provoke the Ukrainians. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the allegations, redirecting questions to Russia’s Defense Ministry, which made no immediate comment. In a brief snippet from the start of the meeting broadcast by Russia state television, the two leaders offered friendly greetings to each other. “I welcome you, Mr. President,” Putin said, speaking with a Russian flag behind him and a video monitor showing Biden in front of him. “Good to see you again!” Biden replied with a chuckle. He then noted Putin’s absence from the recent Group of 20 summit in Rome. The Russian took part in the major gathering of industrial nations by video link because of concerns about COVID-19 at home. “Unfortunately, last time we didn’t get to see one another at G-20,” Biden said. “I hope next time we meet to do it in person.” Biden made clear that his administration stands ready to take actions that would exact “a very real cost” on the Russian economy, according to White House officials. Putin, for his part, had been expected to demand guarantees from Biden that the NATO military alliance will never expand to include Ukraine, which has long sought membership. That’s a non-starter for the Americans and their NATO allies. “We’ve consulted significantly with our allies and believe we have a path forward that would impose significant and severe harm on the Russian economy,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday in previewing the meeting. “You can call that a threat. You can call that a fact. You can call that preparation. You can call it whatever you want to call it.” The leader-to-leader conversation — Biden speaking from the White House Situation Room, Putin from his residence in Sochi —was one of the toughest of Biden’s presidency and came at a perilous time. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russia has massed 70,000 troops near the Ukraine border and has made preparations for a possible invasion early next year. The U.S. has not determined whether Putin has made a final decision to invade. Biden was vice president in 2014 when Russian troops marched into the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and annexed the territory from Ukraine. Aides say the Crimea episode — one of the darker moments for President Barack Obama on the international stage — looms large as Biden looks at the smoldering current crisis. The eastward expansion of NATO has from the start been a bone of contention, not just with Moscow but also in Washington. In 1996, when President Bill Clinton’s national security team debated the timing of membership invitations to former Soviet allies Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Defense Secretary William Perry urged delay to keep Russian relations on track. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were formally invited in 1997 and joined in 1999. They were followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Since then, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia have joined, bringing NATO’s total to 30 nations. A key principle of the NATO alliance is that membership is open to any qualifying country. And no outsider has membership veto power. While there’s little prospect that Ukraine would be invited into the alliance anytime soon, the U.S. and its allies won’t rule it out. READ: Biden, Putin set video call Tuesday as Ukraine tensions grow In Washington, Republicans are framing this moment as a key test of Biden’s leadership on the global stage. Biden vowed as a candidate to reassert American leadership after President Donald Trump’s emphasis on an “America first” foreign policy. But Republicans say he’s been ineffective in slowing Iran’s march toward becoming a nuclear power and that the Biden administration has done too little to counter autocratic leaders like China’s Xi Jinping, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Putin. “Fellow authoritarians in Beijing and Tehran will be watching how the free world responds,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said from the Senate floor on Monday. “And President Biden has an opportunity to set the tone when he speaks with Putin.” Trump, who showed unusual deference to Putin during his presidency, said in a Newsmax interview on Monday that the Biden-Putin conversation would not be a “fair match,” describing it as tantamount to the six-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots facing a high school football team. Ahead of the Putin call, Biden on Monday spoke with leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy to coordinate messaging and potential sanctions. He was to speak with them again on Tuesday following his call with Putin – any potential new sanctions against Russia. Biden is also expected to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in coming days. Putin apparently sees the current situation as a moment to readjust the power dynamic of the U.S.-Russia relationship, analysts say. “It is about fundamental principles established 30 years ago for the relations between Russia and the West,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading Moscow-based foreign policy expert. “Russia demands to revise these principles, the West says there’s no grounds for that. So, it’s impossible to come to an agreement just like that.” Beyond Ukraine, there are plenty of other thorny issues on the table, including cyberattacks and human rights. Kremlin spokesman Peskov said U.S.-Russian relations are overall in “a rather dire state.” Both the White House and the Kremlin sought in advance to lower expectations for Tuesday’s call. But they said the conversation itself was progress. Peskov told reporters Tuesday that “obviously, if the two presidents decided to have a conversation, they intend to discuss issues and don’t mean to bring matters to a dead end.” READ: Sanders to Biden: Cut back looming Medicare premium hike “Putin has repeatedly said that we look for good, predictable relations with the U.S.,” Peskov said. “Russia has never planned to attack anyone. But we have our own concerns, our own red lines — the president spoke clearly about that. To that, Mr. Biden responded that he doesn’t intend to accept any red lines. This issue will be discussed (during the call) as well.” Peskov characterized the Biden-Putin call as a “working conversation during a very difficult period,” when “escalation of tensions in Europe is off the scale, extraordinary.”