BREAKING: Russia declines Ukraine summit with United States—for now

The Kremlin dashed immediate hopes of a summit between Moscow and Washington early Monday morning after President Joe Biden reached out on Sunday, saying he would agree to meet as long as Russian forces had not begun an invasion of Ukraine, the New York Post reported.

But news reports exploded early Monday morning after the Kremlin dismissed the idea, signaling that Russian President Vladimir Putin had lost interest in talking with the American president.

“It’s premature to talk about any specific plans for organizing any kind of summits,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “There is an understanding that dialogue should be continued at the level of foreign ministers,” he said, suggesting that there are “no concrete plans in place” for a summit between the two superpowers.

“If necessary of course, the Russian and American presidents can decide to hold a telephone call or connect via other methods,” he explained. “A meeting is possible if the heads of state consider it appropriate.”

The Kremlin’s disinterest comes only a few hours after Biden’s administration reached out, offering to participate in an international summit to avoid the crisis in Ukraine. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki released a statement Sunday evening that Biden had “accepted in principle” a meeting with Putin, adding that, “We are always ready for diplomacy. We are also ready to impose swift and severe consequences should Russia instead choose war.”

On Friday, Biden announced that he was convinced the Kremlin had decided to invade Russia “in the coming days.” French President Emmanuel Macron intervened and encouraged both sides to engage in talks in hopes of averting a war, a move that was welcomed by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kulbela. Macron also spoke with Putin on Sunday, in which Putin complained about Ukraine’s continued talks about joining NATO, the North American Treaty Organization.

“We believe that every effort aimed at a diplomatic solution is worth trying,” Kubela said from Brussels where he was poised to meet with EU representatives. “We hope that the two presidents will walk out from the room with an agreement about Russia withdrawing its forces from Ukraine.”

Currently, reports suggest that Russia has an estimated 190,000 troops around Ukraine’s borders in Russia, Belarus, Crimea and even the Black Sea.

Ukrainians have boldly volunteered to join their country’s forces to fight if the Russians invade, a decision made at great risk as U.S. intelligence reports about potential human rights abuses that Moscow plans to carry out if they invade Ukraine. One U.S. official warned the United Nations that the Kremlin has compiled a list of Ukrainians “to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation.”

To that end, the U.S. State Department is urging Americans in the region to leave immediately, and warning that “there is a strong likelihood that any Russian military operations would severely restrict commercial air travel.

Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov was expected to speak by telephone with French minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Monday before he is scheduled to speak with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. 

Meanwhile, reports of Russian forces advancing into Ukrainian territory and preliminary fighting continues. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov announced Moscow had no intention of pulling back the military from the Ukrainian border, and Russian separarist movements are continuing to fire upon Ukraine.

“Since the beginning of this day, as of 09:00, 14 attacks have already been recorded, 13 of them from weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements,” he announced to journalists from Kyiv. “One of our soldiers was wounded.”

Fifty minutes later, Russian officials released a statement saying Ukraine fired a shell that destroyed a Russian Federal Security Service station, but there were no reports of actual injuries.

Putin invaded the Crimea in 2014 and Russian separatists continue to occupy areas in the eastern districts of Donetsk and Lugansk. The recent incursion to Ukraine’s borders is the greatest military buildup of Russian forces around the country since Ukraine’s independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Some have speculated that Putin, a former KBG colonel has harbored a deep desire to rebuild the U.S.S.R. In 2005, he told the Russian parliament that the collapse of the Soviet empire was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”