World

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that he wants "immediate" talks with the United States and NATO over security guarantees, as tensions soar between Moscow and the West over Ukraine.

The US and its allies have for weeks accused Russia of planning an invasion of its neighbour, warning of a massive coordinated sanctions response should Putin launch an attack.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops are stationed near the borders of ex-Soviet Ukraine, where the West has accused the Kremlin of backing pro-Moscow separatists since 2014.

In a phone call with the Finnish president — whose country has traditionally served as middle ground between Russia and the West — Putin said he wanted security talks to begin without delay.

He told President Sauli Niinsto that Moscow wants "to immediately launch negotiations with the United States and NATO in order to develop international legal guarantees for the security of our country", the Kremlin said in a statement.

Russia's demands, it said, included stopping NATO from expanding east and the deployment of weapons in neighbouring states, including Ukraine.

Putin reiterated the same demands in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron later on Tuesday.

In his call with the Finnish president, Putin also accused the Ukrainian leadership of increasingly using "heavy weapons and attack drones" against pro-Russia rebels in its separatist east.

The Russian leader denies planning an invasion, blaming the Western security alliance for the rise in tensions and demanding "legal guarantees" the alliance won't expand eastwards.

US President Joe Biden last week warned Putin of “sanctions like he’s never seen” should Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border launch an attack.

The EU and the G-7 met in recent days to coordinate what they warn would be an unprecedented economic sanctions regime if Russia attacks.

Putin’s comments come a day after Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov warned Moscow could act militarily if the talks it demands do not materialise.

“The lack of progress towards a political-diplomatic solution to this problem will lead to the fact that we will respond militarily,” Ryabkov told the RIA Novosti state news agency.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also told his new German counterpart Annalena Baerbock Tuesday of the “necessity to provide our country with security guarantees” against NATO expansion, Moscow said.

Berlin holds one of the most important cards in the sanctions deck, if it decides that Putin’s actions warrant blocking the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

Tensions continued to soar on Tuesday, with Russia saying it was monitoring a French warship near its borders in the Black Sea.

Putin has accused the West of provoking tensions in the Black Sea — a sensitive region for Russia, which controls the Crimean Peninsula after annexing it from Ukraine in 2014.

Kiev has been fighting a pro-Russia insurgency in its eastern regions since the annexation. The conflict has claimed more than 13,000 lives.

Ukraine accuses Germany 

The US sent its top diplomat Karen Donfried — assistant secretary for the bureau of European affairs — on a trip to Kiev, Moscow and EU capital Brussels amid rising tensions this week.

“Our aim is to support Ukraine as we work to de-escalate tensions due to Russia’s build-up,” Donfried said in Kiev on Tuesday, where she began her tour.

She is expected in Moscow on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, accused Kiev’s ally Germany of blocking supply of NATO weapons to the country.

“Germany has recently prevented us from getting anti-drone rifles and anti-sniper systems from NATO, which are exclusively defence tools,” Zelensky said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica published on Tuesday.

“Don’t we have the right to have them in the eighth year of the war? Obviously, we do,” he added.

A spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said on Monday that it could not comment “on the confidential decisions at the heart of the [NATO] alliance at this stage”.

Kiev’s use of Turkish-made Bayraktar drones in October was met with criticism from Russia and some of its Western allies, including France and Germany.

Zelensky warned of “much higher losses” in the event of an invasion.

“Is Russian society ready to pay with the lives of its sons for the attempt to occupy another part of Ukraine?” he asked.

A new poll published by Russia’s independent Levada Centre Tuesday found 36 per cent of Russians believe recent tensions between Moscow and Kiev could lead to war.

GENEVA — The UN said Tuesday it had received credible allegations of over 100 extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in August, with most carried out by the Taliban.

United Nations deputy rights chief Nada Al Nashif said she was deeply alarmed by continuing reports of such killings, despite a general amnesty announced by the new Taliban rulers after August 15.

"Between August and November, we received credible allegations of more than 100 killings of former Afghan national security forces and others associated with the former government," she told the UN Human Rights Council.

"At least 72 of these killings," she said, were "attributed to the Taliban."

"In several cases, the bodies were publicly displayed. This has exacerbated fear among this sizeable category of the population," she said.

The comments, given during a scheduled update to council on the rights situation in Afghanistan, came after the United States and other countries harshly condemned the Taliban following a Human Rights Watch report earlier this month documenting 47 summary executions.

Those killings were of former members of the Afghan National Security Forces, other military personnel, police and intelligence agents "who had surrendered to or were apprehended by Taliban forces" from mid-August through October, it said.

The Taliban spokesman Qari Sayed Khosti flatly rejected the report and other claims about extrajudicial killings as "not based on evidences."

He said there were some cases of former members of the now-defunct Afghan National Defence and Security Forces who had been killed, but that was "because of personal rivalries and enmities"

WASHINGTON — Pfizer said on Tuesday that clinical trials confirmed its COVID pill — a new type of treatment that should withstand the mutations seen with Omicron — drastically reduced hospitalisations and deaths among at-risk people by almost 90 per cent.

The announcement came as a real-world study from South Africa showed two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 70 per cent effective in stopping severe illness from the new variant, a result called encouraging by researchers, though it represents a drop compared to earlier strains.

Data for the new pill, which hasn't yet been authorised anywhere in the world, came from more than 2,200 volunteers, and backed up preliminary findings announced last month.

The American drugmaker said its treatment, called Paxlovid, also held up against the Omicron variant in lab-testing.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CBS News the drug was a "game changer", and he expected the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to give its green light as soon as this month.

The trial showed that the pill reduced the need for hospitalisation in high-risk adults with COVID-19 by 89 per cent if the treatment was given within three days of symptom onset and by 88 per cent if given within five days.

Overall, there were 12 deaths in the placebo group, and none in the drug group.

Side-effects were found at comparable rates between the treatment and placebo groups (23 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively), and were mostly mild.

Paxlovid also reduced the risk of severe disease, as well as the amount of virus detected, in a separate study of people at normal risk — but the results were on the edge of statistical significance and need further confirmation.

New type of drug 

Paxlovid is a combination of two drugs — nirmatrelvir, a new experimental medicine, and ritonavir, an existing antiviral used against HIV, both taken orally over five days.

Nirmatrelvir is known as a “protease inhibitor” and works by blocking the action of an enzyme the coronavirus needs to replicate. Ritonavir is administered to slow down the breakdown of nirmatrelvir inside the body.

Because Paxlovid does not target the fast-mutating spike proteins that stud the surface of the coronavirus, it should be more variant-proof than other treatments, such as synthetic antibody infusions, as well as antibodies evoked by most types of COVID vaccine.

Another COVID pill, Merck’s molnupiravir, has already been authorised in Britain. A US panel of experts narrowly voted in favour of the Merck pill two weeks ago, but FDA authorisation is still awaited.

Final study results showed molnupiravir reduced hospitalisations and deaths by a relatively disappointing 30 per cent, and there were also safety concerns related to its mechanism of action, which differs from the Pfizer pill.

Merck itself recommended against molnupiravir’s use in pregnant women after animal studies showed harm to fetuses.

Real-world vaccine data 

The news comes as the heavily-mutated Omicron variant continues spreading fast around the world, raising alarms about surges in severe cases and deaths.

Even if early data suggesting that the variant is milder in most people is confirmed, its increased transmissibility and ability to overcome prior immunity may negate this advantage, by infecting higher numbers of people.

Many high-income countries have stepped up their campaigns to get people booster shots in order to restore vaccine efficacy.

The latest research out of South Africa found that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine still offered good protection against serious illness of 70 per cent, though this was reduced from 93 per cent during the country’s Delta wave.

The study was based on the results of 78,000 PCR tests taken in South Africa between November 15 and December 7 and was conducted by Discovery along with the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).

It also found two doses were 33 per cent effective against infection — a result that lines up with early data from the UK Health Security Agency, which experts say underscores the case for a third dose.

The British research found a third dose of Pfizer — either after two earlier doses of Pfizer or two of AstraZeneca — brought efficacy against infection back up to 70-75 per cent.

The South African research further confirmed reinfection risk is higher with Omicron, and a lower percentage of people infected with the new variant were hospitalised when compared to the country’s first wave, after adjusting for vaccine status.

Very preliminary data suggests that children have a 20 per cent higher risk of hospital admission with the new variant, but the absolute numbers remain very low.

“It is essential to recognise that these are incomplete and partial data,” said Russell Viner, a professor of child and adolescent health at the University College London, though he also warned against complacency.

MAYFIELD, United States — At least 64 people died in Kentucky from devastating tornadoes that left a trail of destruction across the US state, the governor said on Monday, with 14 people confirmed killed in other states.

Two days after the tornadoes hit, officials are still struggling to establish the toll as emergency responders pick through the rubble of thousands of damaged or destroyed homes and buildings.

"Undoubtedly there will be more [dead]. We believe that it will certainly be above 70, maybe even 80," said Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.

Thousands of people have been left homeless by what Beshear has described as the state’s worst storm on record.

Some 105 people in Kentucky remain unaccounted for, and “it may be weeks before we have final counts on both deaths and levels of destruction”, he said.

The governor choked back tears as he reflected on the tragedy that flattened parts of the American heartland.

But he also said there was a “light of hope” surrounding a collapsed candle factory in the ravaged town of Mayfield, where some 110 employees were working late Friday to meet the holiday rush when the tornado ripped the building to shreds.

The factory owners reported eight dead and eight missing from the collapse, and that “94 are alive and have been accounted for”, Beshear said.

“We feared much, much worse. And again I pray it is accurate,” he added

Mountains of debris dotted several cities and towns, and many livestock were dead, Beshear said.

Communities were also digging out in five other states where tornadoes touched down Friday night into Saturday, in what US President Joe Biden described as “one of the largest” storm outbreaks in American history.

‘Recover and rebuild’ 

The tornadoes killed at least 14 people outside of Kentucky, including six in an Amazon warehouse in the southern Illinois city of Edwardsville, where they were on the night shift processing orders ahead of Christmas.

Biden declared a major disaster in Kentucky, allowing additional federal aid to be channelled into recovery efforts, and the administration sought to assure stricken communities that help is coming.

“We will be there throughout to enable the people to recover and rebuild,” US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN.

With an immense recovery effort looming, immediate concerns for residents’ safety and well-being were front and centre as cold weather began to bite in towns that resembled war zones.

Officials said 28,500 Kentucky customers remained without power on Monday.

A non-denominational church in Mayfield was handing out food and clothing to storm survivors while also providing space for the county coroner to do his work, said pastor Stephen Boyken of His House Ministries.

People “come with pictures, birthmarks — they talk now about using DNA samples to identify those who have been lost”, he told AFP.

‘Up in smoke’ 

The storm system’s power placed it in historic company.

Storm trackers said it had lofted debris 9,100 metres into the air, and the Mayfield twister appeared to have broken an almost century-old record, tracking on the ground more than 320 kilometres.

Mayfield, a town of about 10,000 near the westernmost tip of Kentucky, was perhaps the hardest-hit community: City blocks were leveled, historic homes and buildings were beaten down to their slabs, tree trunks had been stripped of their branches and cars lay overturned in fields.

Randy Guennel, a 79-year-old retiree, survived two days with his sick wife in their destroyed home before finding shelter at a church north of Mayfield.

“We’ve worked so many years for all this and it’s up in smoke,” he said, choking back sobs. “We don’t have a house, no cars, no nothing.”

MAYFIELD, United States — US rescuers desperately searched for survivors on Sunday after tornadoes killed at least 94 and left towns in ruin, with emergency crews racing against time to find dozens still missing from a collapsed Kentucky factory.

President Joe Biden called the wave of twisters, including one that traveled more than 320 kilometres, "one of the largest" storm outbreaks in American history.

"It's a tragedy," a shaken Biden, who pledged support for the affected states, said in televised comments. "And we still don't know how many lives are lost and the full extent of the damage."

With the death toll all but certain to rise, scores of search and rescue officers were helping stunned citizens across the US heartland sift through the rubble of their homes and businesses overnight.

More than 80 people are dead in Kentucky alone, many of them workers at a candle factory in Mayfield, the state's Governor Andy Beshear said Sunday as he raised the confirmed toll by 10 fatalities.

And the forecast was grim. "That number is going to exceed more than 100," Beshear told CNN.

Meanwhile, at least six died in an Amazon warehouse in Illinois where they were on the night shift processing orders ahead of Christmas.

Emergency crews worked through the night into Sunday at both locations, but the Kentucky governor's somber remarks suggested his state's residents should brace for the worst.

Of the 110 employees working Friday night in the candle factory, "about 40 of them have been rescued and I'm not sure we're going to see another rescue", Beshear said.

"I pray for it," he said, but "it would be an incredible miracle" if more factory victims were found alive.

As Americans grappled with the immensity of the disaster, condolences poured in, with Pope Francis saying he is praying "for the victims of the tornado that hit Kentucky".

Biden’s Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, in a break from tense bilateral relations, said his country “shares in the grief” of those who lost loved ones and expressed hope that victims quickly overcome the tornadoes’ consequences.

The catastrophe has shaken many Americans, including officials who have worked in the aftermath of tornadoes and other big storms.

“This event is the worst, most devastating, most deadly tornado event in Kentucky’s history,” Beshear said on Saturday, adding he fears “we will have lost more than 100 people”.

“The devastation is unlike anything I have seen in my life and I have trouble putting it into words.”

The head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, Deanne Criswell, was to arrive in Kentucky on Sunday.

The largest tornado among the swarm that smashed through the US South and Midwest had rumbled along the ground for over 320 kilometres Beshear said, one of the longest on record.

The longest a US tornado has ever tracked along the ground was a storm in Missouri in 1925. It claimed 695 lives.

‘Hope for a miracle’ 

The western Kentucky town of Mayfield was reduced to “matchsticks”, its mayor Kathy O’Nan said.

“There’s always hope” for survivors among the missing, O’Nan told NBC Sunday. “We hope for a miracle in the days to come.”

The town of 10,000 was described as “ground zero” by officials, and appeared post-apocalyptic: City blocks leveled; historic homes and buildings beaten down to their slabs; tree trunks stripped of their branches; cars overturned in fields.

Some Christmas decorations could still be seen by the side of the road.

David Norseworthy, a 69-year-old builder in Mayfield, said the storm blew off his roof and front porch while the family hid in a shelter.

“We never had anything like that here,” he told AFP

In one demonstration of the storms’ power, when winds derailed a 27-car train near Earlington, Kentucky, one car was blown 75 yards up a hill and another landed on a house. No one was hurt.

Deaths in 

multiple states 

Reports put the total number of tornadoes across the region at around 30.

At least 14 people were killed in other storm-hit states, including six at the Amazon facility in Illinois.

Four were killed in Tennessee, two died in Arkansas, while Missouri recorded two fatalities. Tornadoes also touched down in Mississippi.

Biden said he planned to travel to the affected areas.

Amazon workers trapped 

At the Amazon warehouse in the southern Illinois city of Edwardsville, around 100 workers are believed to have been trapped inside.

“We identified 45 personnel who made it out of the building safely... and six fatalities,” Edwardsville fire chief James Whiteford told reporters.

But he said the operation had turned from rescue to focus “only on recovery”, fuelling fears the toll will rise.

Amazon chief Jeff Bezos said he was “heartbroken” at the deaths.

MAYFIELD, United States — Tornadoes ripped through five US states overnight, leaving more than 70 people dead on Saturday in Kentucky and causing multiple fatalities at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois that suffered "catastrophic damage" with around 100 people trapped inside.

The western Kentucky town of Mayfield was "ground zero" of the storm — a scene of "massive devastation", one official said.

Entire city blocks there were flattened, with houses and buildings ripped apart, and twisted metal, shattered tree limbs and bricks scattered across streets, according to pictures and videos shared on social media.

"We were pretty sure that we would lose over 50 Kentuckians. I'm now certain that number is north of 70. It may in fact end up exceeding 100 before the day is done," Governor Andy Beshear told a midday press conference in Mayfield.

The roof of a candle factory collapsed in Mayfield, resulting in "mass casualties" there, Beshear said earlier.

At least one person died when a tornado "pretty much destroyed" a nursing home in the Arkansas town of Monette, a county official said. Another person died elsewhere in the state, local media reported.

Towns in Missouri and Tennessee were affected as well by some of the most powerful tornadoes to hammer the area in years.

President Joe Biden tweeted that the massive storms had inflicted an “unimaginable tragedy” on the area and vowed to provide all needed federal aid.

Lori Wooton was at her daughter’s home in the Kentucky town of Dawson Springs when, she said, the storm came on with stunning swiftness.”At first, you know, we were just hearing the rain,” she told CNN, “and all of a sudden, it was just very loud like a train”.

“It didn’t seem like it lasted that long... three or four seconds and it was gone. But then when we got out and started looking at the damage, it was just unbelievable.”

One tornado, which first touched down in Missouri, smashed along the ground, Governor Beshear said.

The longest a US tornado has ever tracked along the ground was a 352 kilometre storm in Missouri in 1925. Powerful and devastating — as such long-track storms tend to be — it claimed 695 lives.

Images of the latest tornadoes from US news channels showed dark black cylinders sweeping across the ground, illuminated by intermittent flashes of lightning.

At least four Kentucky counties were left devastated.

“Mayfield in Graves County will be ground zero,” Kentucky emergency management director Michael Dossett told CNN early on Saturday. “The city took... the hardest hit. There is massive devastation,” he said.

The governor declared a state of emergency before midnight and said scores of search and rescue officials had been deployed.

Around 200,000 homes in Kentucky and Tennessee were left without power, according to PowerOutage.com.

‘Prayers’ 

On the same night a storm ripped through a massive Amazon warehouse in the state of Illinois where around 100 workers were trapped inside, local media reported.

Hundreds of officials were working through the early hours of Saturday to rescue employees at the warehouse — a third of which was reduced to rubble — who were on the night shift processing orders ahead of the Christmas holidays.

Footage shared across US news channels and social media of the Amazon warehouse showed a large part of the facility’s roof ripped off, while one of the walls had collapsed into the building.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said police and state emergency agencies were “coordinating closely with local officials and I will continue to monitor the situation”.

In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Richard Rocha said “the safety and well-being of our employees and partners is our top priority right now. We’re assessing the situation and will share additional information when it’s available”.

In Arkansas, some 20 people were trapped after a tornado struck the Monette Manor nursing home, US media reported.

Craighead county official Marvin Day told local news channels that rescuers had successfully pulled out those trapped in the building and the structure was “pretty much destroyed”.

Scientists have warned that climate change is making storms more powerful and increasing their frequency, posing a growing threat to areas where extreme weather events are already common.

VIENNA — Tens of thousands gathered in Austria’s capital Vienna on Saturday to protest mandatory COVID vaccines and home confinement orders for those who have not yet received the jabs.

Police said an estimated 44,000 people attended the demonstration, the latest in a string of huge weekend protests since Austria last month became the first EU country to say it would make COVID vaccinations mandatory.

A partial confinement since last month ends on Sunday for the vaccinated, but those who have not received the required doses will have to remain at home.

“No to vaccine fascism,” read one protest sign.

“I’m not a neo-Nazi or a hooligan,” said another, “I’m fighting for freedom and against the vaccine.”

Vaccination is to be obligatory from February for all residents older than 14, except in the case of a dispensation for health reasons.

Nobody will be vaccinated by force, the government has said, but those who refuse the shot will have to pay an initial fine of 600 euros ($670), which can then increase to 3,600 euros ($4,000) if not settled.

Manuela, 47, said she had travelled in from out of town for the protest.

Why “exclude those who aren’t vaccinated, especially children?” asked the working mother who said she was vaccinated, but did not want to give her surname.

“It’s incredible discrimination not to be able to send a kid to dancing, tennis or swimming lessons.”

Analea, a 44-year-old violin teacher who also refused to give her family name, said this was “not the direction a democracy should be taking”.

“We can have different opinions and values, but still live together freely,” she said.

A flurry of groups called for rallies on Saturday, including the far-right Freedom Party, led by leader Herbert Kickl.

BERLIN — Olaf Scholz became Germany's next chancellor on Wednesday after 16 years with Angela Merkel at the helm, pledging his centre-left-led coalition would offer a "new beginning" for Europe's top economy.

Scholz was officially named the country's ninth post-war leader by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who urged him to "ensure that the pandemic does not keep us firmly in its grip for another year" as a fourth wave of the coronavirus outbreak rages.

The former finance minister, who won 395 of the 707 votes cast in the Bundestag lower house, has vowed broad "continuity" with the popular Merkel while making Germany greener and fairer.

"It will be a new beginning for our country," Scholz pledged as he officially assumed the office from Merkel and thanked her for her lengthy tenure.

"I will do everything to work towards that."

Merkel wished Scholz luck as chancellor, urging him to “take this office and work in the best interest of our country”.

She then left her office by motorcade for the last time as her staff looked on, applauding.

“I came to see Merkel for a last time,” said Enrique Velazco, 30, part of a small crowd gathered outside the chancellery. “She stood for stability for the world.”

‘Dare for more’ 

Scholz led his Social Democrats from a deep poll deficit to victory in the September 26 election.

The 63-year-old, who turned emulating Merkel in style and substance into a winning strategy, forged Germany’s first national “traffic light” coalition with the ecologist Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, nicknamed after the parties’ colours.

Their four-year pact sealed late last month is called “Dare for More Progress”, a hat tip to Social Democratic chancellor Willy Brandt’s historic 1969 pledge to “Dare for More Democracy”.

The alliance aims to slash carbon emissions, overhaul decrepit digital infrastructure, modernise citizenship laws, lift the minimum wage and have Germany join a handful of countries worldwide in legalising marijuana.

French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated Scholz, pledging “we will write the next chapter together” while EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said she looked forward to cooperation for a “strong Europe”.

Scholz’s office announced his first official visit would take him to Paris and Brussels on Friday for talks with Macron, von der Leyen and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

China’s Xi Jinping said Beijing was willing to work with Scholz to “promote bilateral ties to a new level” while Vladimir Putin said Russia was offering “constructive ties” with the new government.

In his first TV interview as chancellor, Scholz warned of possible “consequences” for the contested Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine amid a troop build-up, stressing “the inviolability of the borders” must be respected.

Gender balanced 

The new foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has pledged a tougher line with authoritarian states such as Russia and China after the business-driven pragmatism of the Merkel years.

Greens co-leader Baerbock is one of eight women in Germany’s first gender-balanced Cabinet.

“That corresponds to the society we live in — half of the power belongs to women,” Scholz, who describes himself as a “feminist”, said this week.

Scholz and his team promise stability just as France braces for a bitterly fought presidential election next year and Europe grapples with the enduring aftershocks of Brexit.

However, a vicious fourth COVID wave has already put the incoming coalition to the test.

“We have to make a fresh start while facing down the corona pandemic — those are the circumstances the new government is up against,” Scholz told reporters Tuesday.

More than 103,000 people have died with coronavirus in Germany while new infections have surged since the weather turned cold, filling intensive care units to breaking point.

Scholz has thrown his weight behind making jabs mandatory to get the pandemic under control, as Austria has done.

‘Lessons of history’ 

Merkel, 67, Germany’s first woman chancellor, is retiring from politics after four consecutive terms, the first post-war leader to step aside of her own accord.

Macron tweeted his gratitude to the outgoing leader.

“Thank you, dear Angela, for never forgetting the lessons of history, for having done so much for us, with us, to move Europe forward,” he said.

She leaves big shoes to fill, with large majorities approving of her leadership.

Despite being from a rival party, Scholz tapped into that well of popular support in his bid to succeed Merkel while pledging to tackle the gap between rich and poor that widened under her.

Meanwhile, Greens supporters are banking on billions flowing toward climate protection and renewable energy, even as the government pledges to return to a no-new-debt rule by 2023.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he had warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of unprecedented US sanctions should Russian troops massed on the border of Ukraine launch an attack.

A day after talking for two hours by video link, Biden said Putin got "the message".

"I made it very clear if in fact he invades Ukraine there will be severe consequences, severe consequences — economic consequences like none he's ever seen or ever have been seen," Biden told reporters at the White House.

But Biden added that sending US troops to confront Russia was "not on the table".

Adding to diplomatic pressure on the Kremlin leader, new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned of "consequences" for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a huge Russian project to deliver natural gas to Germany.

Asked in an interview with Die Welt TV whether he could imagine using the pipeline as leverage to ward off a Russian attack on Ukraine, Scholz said his government wants "the inviolability of the borders to be respected" and "everybody understands that there would be consequences if this were not the case".

The White House had already suggested immediately after the video summit that stopping the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could be part of an economic response, although the issue is controversial in Europe, which relies heavily on Russian energy resources.

France's foreign ministry said in a statement that Russia would face "strategic and massive consequences".

Putin, however, defended Russia's movement of up to 100,000 troops to the border of Ukraine, describing this as a defensive measure amid fears in the Kremlin that the one-time Soviet republic is being pulled into NATO's sphere.

"Russia has a peaceful foreign policy, but has the right to defend its security," Putin said at a news conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“We cannot but be concerned about the prospect of Ukraine’s possible admission to NATO, because this will undoubtedly be followed by the deployment of appropriate military contingents, bases and weapons that threaten us,” he said.

The Russian leader stressed that NATO expanding eastwards is a “very sensitive” issue for Russia.

Ukraine’s Western-leaning government wants to join the NATO military alliance but is nowhere close to being admitted. Russian troops already occupy Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and Russian-backed separatist forces have carved out a pro-Moscow territory covering a swath of eastern Ukraine.

US troops? 

Biden said that in addition to economic measures, a new Russian attack on Ukraine would trigger a bolstered US military presence on the territory of existing NATO allies in eastern Europe.

“We would probably be required to reinforce our presence in NATO countries to reassure particularly those in the eastern front. In addition to that, I made it clear that we would provide a defensive capability to the Ukrainians as well,” he said.

The United States already works closely with the Ukrainian military and has provided millions of dollars in weaponry. However, Biden said that sending US troops to defend Ukraine without NATO agreement was ruled out.

“The idea the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not on the cards right now,” Biden said. “We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies under Article Five. It’s a sacred obligation. That obligation does not extend to... Ukraine.”

“But it would depend upon what the rest of the NATO countries were willing to do as well,” Biden said, seemingly leaving the door to intervention open just a crack.

Regarding Russia’s contention that NATO expansion into its former Soviet strongholds poses a threat, Biden said Moscow and the major NATO allies were working at a high level on “whether or not we could work out any accommodations as it relates to bringing down temperature along the eastern front”.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has said he is ready to negotiate with Putin, welcomed Tuesday’s video summit.

“I think it’s positive that the president of the United States spoke with the president of Russia,” Zelensky said.

He is due to hold talks with Biden on Thursday.

Ukraine has been fighting pro-Russia separatists in its eastern Lugansk and Donetsk regions since 2014, shortly after Moscow seized Crimea.

Kiev and its Western allies accuse the Kremlin of supporting the separatists with military, financial and political cover — claims Moscow denies — in a conflict that has claimed over 13,000 lives.