KYIV, Ukraine —

       More NATO troops headed to Eastern Europe and some nations worked to move their citizens and diplomats out of Ukraine on Monday, as Germany’s chancellor made a last-ditch attempt to head off a possible Russian invasion that some warn could be just days away.

       With the world already on high alert, British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said a Russian attack could “effectively now happen with no notice.” That follows a warning from U.S. officials that an invasion could come this week — leading to a flurry of diplomacy but also deterrence measures.

       German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Ukraine on Monday and plans to continue on to Moscow, where he will try to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to stand down. Moscow denies it has any plans to invade but has massed more than 130,000 troops near Ukraine and, in Washington’s view, has built up enough firepower to launch an attack on short notice.

       “We are experiencing a very, very serious threat to peace in Europe,” Scholz wrote on Twitter as he arrived in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. “From Moscow, we urgently expect signals of de-escalation.”

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       With concerns rising that war could be imminent, German’s military said the first of some 350 extra troops it is sending to bolster NATO forces in Lithuania were en route Monday. Six howitzer guns were also being loaded onto trucks for transport to the alliance’s eastern flank.

       Meanwhile, Lithuania moved diplomats’ families and some nonessential diplomatic workers out of Ukraine; the U.S. is already pulling most of its staff from the embassy in Kyiv. And the Greek Foreign Ministry joined several Western nations in urging its citizens to leave the country.

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       As the U.S. seeks to present a united front on Ukraine, Germany has its own interests to safeguard in dealings with the Kremlin. Some other European states do as well.

       The moves were the latest preparations for a possible war. On Sunday, some airlines canceled flights to Kyiv, and troops there unloaded fresh shipments of weapons from NATO members. Ukraine’s air traffic safety agency, Ukraerorukh, declared the airspace over the Black Sea to be a “zone of potential danger” because of Russian naval drills and recommended that planes avoid flying over the sea Monday through Saturday.

       The U.S. and its NATO allies have repeatedly warned that Russia will pay a high price for any invasion, but they have sometimes struggled to present a united front. Scholz’s government, in particular, has been criticized for refusing to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine or to spell out which sanctions it would support against Russia, raising questions about Berlin’s resolve in standing up to Moscow.

       The chancellor’s visits this week will thus be closely watched for any deviation from the message delivered by Washington and other NATO allies — but it is also seen as a last-ditch effort to head off war.

       So far, those warnings appear to have had little effect: Russia has only beefed up troops and weapons in the region and launched massive drills in its ally Belarus, which also neighbors Ukraine. The West fears that the drills, which are scheduled to run through Sunday, could be used by Moscow as a cover for an invasion from the north.

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       Russia has repeatedly brushed off Ukrainian and Western concerns about the military buildup, saying it has the right to deploy forces wherever needed on its territory. On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of fueling tensions by beefing up its forces near the territories controlled by Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.

       Moscow wants guarantees from the West that NATO won’t allow Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to join as members, and that the alliance will halt weapon deployments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe. The U.S. and NATO have flatly rejected those demands.

       Some observers expect Moscow to eventually accept a compromise that would help avoid hostilities and allow all sides to save face. While NATO refuses to shut the door to Ukraine, the alliance also has no intention of embracing it or any other ex-Soviet nation anytime soon. Some experts have floated ideas such as a moratorium on NATO expansion or a neutral status for Ukraine to defuse the tensions.

       Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain, Vadym Prystaiko, had seemed to suggest just such a middle path Sunday, telling the BBC that the country could abandon its goal of joining NATO — an objective that is written into its constitution — if it would avert war with Russia.

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       A post-Soviet border town in northern Ukraine wonders if Russia is coming back

       With Russian troops just miles away, the residents of a small Ukrainian village wonder if a possible invasion has its sights set on them.

       “We might — especially being threatened like that, blackmailed by that and pushed to it,” Prystaiko told BBC Radio 5.

       On Monday, however, Prystaiko appeared to back away from that, saying that, “to avoid war, we are ready for many concessions ... but it has nothing to do with NATO, which is enshrined in the constitution.”

       Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko also played down Prystaiko’s statement.

       Asked about Prystaiko’s comment, Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that Russia would welcome such a move but noted the quick repudiation of it by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. Ukrainian parliament speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk also emphasized that there was no talk about revising the constitutional provision that refers to NATO membership, and some lawmakers called for Prystaiko’s dismissal.

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       Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Sunday that Kyiv requested a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the next 48 hours to discuss the Russian deployments near the country’s borders. Poland, which currently chairs the OSCE, said the meeting is scheduled for Tuesday. But it is unlikely to defuse the crisis.

       Tensions in the region further increased Saturday when the Russian Defense Ministry summoned the U.S. Embassy’s military attache to protest what it described as a U.S. submarine in Russian waters near the Kuril Islands in the Pacific. The Russian military said the submarine initially ignored orders to leave, but left after the Russian navy used unspecified “appropriate means.” The U.S. has denied that its submarine ever entered Russian waters.

       Asked by lawmakers Monday if the military could strike foreign warships that enter Russian waters, the deputy chief of the Russian military’s general staff said the military stood ready for it, but added that such decisions were made only at the highest level.

       In an hourlong Saturday call with Putin, President Biden said that invading Ukraine would cause “widespread human suffering” and that the West was committed to diplomacy to end the crisis but “equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House said.

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       Under threat of a Russian invasion, Kyiv shrugs — and prepares for war

       Plenty of residents of Kyiv don’t seem to think their capital is on borrowed time, but some are girding for a potential Russian invasion anyway.

       Biden also spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for about an hour Sunday, agreeing to keep pushing both deterrence and diplomacy to try to stave off a Russian offensive.

       As he has before, Zelensky sought to play down the idea that a conflict was imminent, noting that Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine “are safe and under reliable protection.”

       His office’s readout of the call also quoted him suggesting that a quick Biden visit would help de-escalate the situation — signaling Zelensky’s hope the U.S. leader might actually come. That possibility was not mentioned in the White House summary of the call.

       Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from office by a popular uprising. Moscow responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and then backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed more than 14,000 people.

       A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped halt large-scale battles, but regular skirmishes have continued, and efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled.