Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron following a meeting in Moscow.

       In the highest-profile meeting since Russia began massing troops on the border with Ukraine, Mr Macron told the Russian president he was seeking a "useful" response "that of course allows us to avoid war and to build bricks of trust, stability, visibility".

       Mr Putin, for his part, said Russia and France shared "a common concern about what is happening in the security sphere in Europe".

       "I see how much efforts the current leadership of France and the president personally is applying in order to solve the crisis related to providing equal security in Europe for a serious historical perspective," Mr Putin said.

       Elsewhere, the UK will send 350 more troops to the Polish border with Ukraine, as tensions increase and the threat of Russian invasion deepens.

       Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said that the UK and Poland are discussing what the two countries could do to deter Russia from making the "foolish mistake" of invading Ukraine, and warned that Ukraine will fight if it is invaded.

       Germany has also announced that it will deploy 350 more soldiers to Lithuania, while the US will send around 1,700 service members to Poland and 1,000 to Romania.

       Follow the latest updates below.

       US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been speaking at the joint press conference.

       "We don't believe that President Putin has made a decision, but he has put in place the capacity should he so decide to act very quickly against Ukraine and in ways that would have terrible consequences for Russia, consequences also for all of us," Mr Blinken said.

       "This threatened aggression against Ukraine would undermine the core principles that were hard established after World War Two, and after the Cold War, that have helped to protect security, stability, peace and prosperity in Europe and beyond," he added.

       "Ever since principles like one country can't simply go in by force and change the borders of another. One country can't simply dictate to another, its choices, its decisions, including about with whom it will associate, one country cannot exert a sphere of influence over its neighbours to try to subjugate those neighbours to its will.

       "All of those things are at stake. And that's why it's been so important, not just in terms of Ukraine, as important as that is, but in terms of the larger principles that are endangered by Russia's conduct."

       Europe is facing its most serious security threat since the Cold War, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has warned, though he stressed a diplomatic solution with Russia over Ukraine remains "possible."

       "We are living, to my understanding, the most dangerous moment for security in Europe after the end of the Cold War," Mr Borrell told a joint news conference in Washington with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

       Questioned about US warnings of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, Blinken denied Washington's stance was alarmist, saying: "This is not alarmism. This is simply the facts."

       The 350 troops will come from Arbroath-based 45 Commando of the Royal Marines, who were due to deploy to Norway as part of routine training, Dom Nicholls reports.

       They will be used to exercise with Polish forces and support contingency planning.

       US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the United States and the European Union are working to protect European energy supplies against shocks stemming from the Ukraine crisis.

       "We're coordinating with our allies and partners, with the energy sector stakeholders, including on how best to share energy reserves in the event that Russia turns off the spigot or initiates a conflict that disrupts the flow of gas through Ukraine," Mr Blinken told a State Department briefing with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell.

       He added that the US and EU are determined to protect the gas supply in order to prevent people dying from any cut off by Russia.

       Emmanuel Macron says he wants to create a "useful response" to Russia, avoid war and build confidence, stability and visibility.

       There have been some quite dramatic pictures coming out of this meeting. The French President has just posted this on Twitter.

       Earlier he said: "We must move towards de-escalation. We know what the terms are moving forward. There are major questions regarding collective security, the Ukrainian question, the security situation in Belarus and throughout the region: let's move forward.

       Vladimir Putin is hosting French President Emmanuel Macron for talks in Moscow at a giant oval table due to the Russian leader’s strict coronavirus protocol.

       President Macron, who is in Moscow for talks aimed at defusing escalating tensions over Ukraine, was shown in TV footage on Monday seated at least three metres away from Mr Putin in one of the Kremlin's ornate room.

       The Kremlin is known to ask all visitors, even the chief executive of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom, to self-isolate for two weeks before getting face time with Mr Putin.

       In a few exceptional cases Mr Putin meets foreign leaders in socially distanced settings.

       Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, could not contain his amazement at the anti-coronavirus measures after his talks with Mr Putin last week.

       “In my life I have never sat at such a long table before,” he told reporters after the talks.

       Mr Orban was later pictured raising a glass of champagne with Mr Putin - this time standing one big carpet away from him.

       The US Embassy in London has put out this tweet, showing the solidarity between Western allies.

       A Russian-backed separatist leader in eastern Ukraine has said that full-scale war could break out there at any time and his forces might need to turn to Moscow for support.

       Denis Pushilin, head of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic, said there was a high likelihood of a war that would bring huge casualties, although it would be "madness" to embrace such a conflict.

       "First of all we rely on ourselves, but we do not rule out that we will be forced to turn to Russia if Ukraine, with the support of Western countries, passes a certain line," he told Reuters in an interview in his fortified office.

       Some 15,000 people have been killed since 2014 in fighting between the Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian army, according to the government in Kyiv

       Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has warned Moscow against trying to split Kyiv from its Western allies, as European leaders push to defuse tensions over Russia's troop build-up on its neighbour's border.

       "No one, no matter how hard anyone tries in Russia, will be able to drive a wedge between Ukraine and its partners," Mr Kuleba said at a press conference with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock in Kyiv.

       German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said there would be a very high price if Russia invades Ukraine, amid US warnings that an incursion could happen in a matter of days or weeks.

       Mr Scholz is in Washington DC and is due to meet US President Joe Biden at the White House at 1:30pm (6:30pm GMT).

       Afterwards, the pair will host a joint press conference.

       Talks between Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have begun in Moscow.

       Mr Putin told Mr Macron that he was "very happy to see you, dear Emmanuel" and said he had recognised the efforts of French authorities to solve security crises in Europe, including in Ukraine.

       He added that Moscow and Paris share common concerns over the security situation on the continent.

       Mr Macron said he hoped the talks would start the "de-escalation" of the Ukraine crisis.

       Watch Roland Oliphant's analysis of the crisis here

       The UK will send 350 more troops to the Polish border with Ukraine amid increasing tensions, the Defence Secretary has announced.

       Ben Wallace said that the UK and Poland are discussing what the two countries could do to deter Russia from making the "foolish mistake" of invading Ukraine, and warned that Ukraine will fight if it is invaded.

       He added that the extra troops will strengthen the contingent of 100 British soldiers already there, and would be a "bilateral deployment to show that we can work together and send a strong signal that Britain and Poland stand side by side".

       Germany will deploy up to 350 more soldiers to Lithuania to help strengthen Nato's eastern flank, Christine Lambrecht, the country's defence minister, said.

       Ms Lambrecht said: "We are therefore strengthening our troop contribution on Nato's eastern flank and sending a clear sign of our resolve to our allies.

       She added that soldiers will be deployed "within a few days".

       Germany currently has 500 soldiers stationed in Lithuania as part of Nato forces.

       “We’ll have to do something, or we’ll lose it,” Vladimir Putin reportedly fretted to Kremlin aides when asked about Ukraine after he became president.

       His attempts to grapple with that dilemma have produced some of the most dramatic moments in his two decades in power, including multiple diplomatic crises, two revolutions, and a war that has claimed at least 14,000 lives.

       Now it has prompted him to amass the biggest invasion force seen in Europe since the Second World War.

       What is driving him to such enormous risks? And why, despite all his efforts, is Ukraine further from his grasp than when he first worried about losing it?

       Depending who you listen to, he is an ethnic nationalist gathering the Russian lands. A KGB man determined to rebuild his beloved Soviet Union. Or simply another ruler of Moscow, like many before him, seeking security in strategic depth at the expense of his western neighbours.

       There is a little bit of truth to all those claims.

       Read the full story from Roland Oliphant here

       Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs, has said that the country has "red lines" that will not be crossed during diplomatic discussions set to take place this week.

       Ukraine is preparing for a week of "intensive diplomacy" with foreign ministers visiting Kyiv from countries including Austria, France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany.

       Boris Johnson's spokesman said the Prime Minister wants to reassure Russian president Vladimir Putin that Nato's role is that of a defensive alliance that any European democracy should be able to join.

       The PM's spokesman said: "Russia has expressed concerns about potential Nato aggression, but we have been clear that those concerns are fundamentally unfounded as Nato is a defensive alliance at its heart.

       "But we do want to work with Russia to provide diplomatic reassurance on that front. It is not about making concessions - as the PM and other Western leaders have said all European democracies have a right to join Nato."

       Russia is demanding security guarantees from Nato including a promise that the alliance will never admit Ukraine.

       By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo

       The United States has urged Japan to step up pressure on Moscow by imposing economic sanctions if Russian troops invade Ukraine, according to local reports.

       Japan has reportedly deferred its response to the US request, which was made against a backdrop of Russia's tense military build-up along its border with Ukraine.

       One source cited by Kyodo News agency said that while Japan "would be compelled to take an appropriate measure in case of an invasion", there were calls from within the government to refrain from announcing any possible sanctions before an invasion takes place.

       The Japanese government faces a sensitive balancing act between showing unity with the US and other Western nations while trying not to provoke bilateral tensions with Russia.

       One of Tokyo's key concerns centre on the potential ramifications on its longstanding efforts to seek an agreement on a decades-old territorial dispute over a clutch of Russian-held islands off Japan's northernmost Hokkaido region.

       Emmanuel Macron will be walking a perilous political tightrope when he visits Vladimir Putin in Moscow today, writes Telegraph Europe Editor James Crisp.

       The French president will be balancing US and Nato red lines over the Ukraine crisis on one hand. On the other, he must offer the Russian president the prospect of some concessions from the West to convince him to deescalate the crisis.

       Mr Putin could hang him out to dry and leave him looking the clown. But the true audience is French voters in April’s presidential elections.

       A French president fresh from brokering peace with the superpowers after striding across the world stage like a latter day De Gaulle would be a formidable opponent for those hoping to unseat Mr Macron.

       US President Joe Biden and German chancellor Olaf Scholz plan to present a unified front in opposition of Russian aggression against Ukraine when they meet at the White House today.

       Prior to his departure for Washington D.C., Mr Scholz told broadcaster ARD that his first meeting as chancellor with Mr Biden would involve "hard, real political work" and said that Western efforts to solve the crisis diplomatically were starting to resonate.

       A senior US administration official told Reuters that the US was "absolutely confident that Germany shares our concerns over Russian aggression, shares our support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity".

       Further, both the US and Germany were "in absolute agreement" on the need for additional measures such as sanctions and deployment of extra Nato troops to the eastern flank in the event of an invasion, the official added.

       Nato could increase its military presence in the Baltic states and Poland if Russian troops stay in Belarus after their planned military exercise has finished, the head of the group's military committee said.

       Rob Bauer, a Dutch admiral who heads up Nato's top military strategy body, said further deployments from Nato allies are possible.

       Mr Bauer said: "Yes, we are looking at it. There might be changes in the future as a result of these developments. It very much depends, of course, on whether the Russian troops in Belarus remain in Belarus.

       "If you look at the buildup of the forces, Russia could be able to actually have sufficient forces for a serious invasion… by the end of this month. Whether they do that, whether they have the true intention or not, we don't know."

       He added that the most recent deployments at the Belarus border included field hospitals and other units required to support a military assault, which he called "very concerning".

       Kri？jānis Kari？？, the prime minister of Latvia, said on Twitter that he spoke to the French president Emmanuel Macron over the weekend, where he "underlined the importance of keeping the unity among Allies, continuing strong support to Ukraine as well as to strengthening of Nato presence in the Baltic states".

       Two US military planes landed in Poland this morning, with more expected later in the day, bringing the bulk of the extra troops that President Joe Biden ordered to be dispatched to Eastern Europe last week amid the ongoing Ukraine crisis.

       President Biden has ordered almost 3,000 troops to move to the area to protect from the possibility of a Russian attack on Ukraine.

       Around 1,700 service members, mostly from the 82nd Airborne Division based in Fort Bragg, will be based in Poland, while 1,000 troops based in Germany will be deployed to Romania.

       The Kremlin said that the meeting between French president Emmanuel Macron and Russian president Vladimir Putin was very important in resolving tensions over the Ukraine crisis - but warned that significant breakthroughs could not be expected.

       Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the "situation is too complex to expect decisive breakthroughs in one meeting".

       Mr Peskov said the meeting between the pair would feature a "substantive and lengthy" discussion and was "very important" because of France's current position as the country who holds the presidency of the EU.

       He added: "Macron told Putin himself that he is coming with certain ideas to find possible options for defusing tensions in Europe."

       Liz Truss said on Sunday that it had become clear that Russia's denials about plans to invade Ukraine were false, after the US warned that Moscow's army had nearly reached its full strength at the border.

       In a tweet, the Foreign Secretary said: "The depths of Russian attempts to subvert and threaten Ukraine are clear. Russia’s actions show their claims to have no plans to invade are false.

       "We and our allies stand united in support for Ukraine and our resolve to raise the cost to Russia if they take further action."

       Fellow Tory MP Robert Jenrick has questioned whether Ms Truss's visit to Moscow this week - to meet with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov - is wise amid the ongoing crisis.

       Speaking to BBC Radio 4's The Westminster Hour programme, Mr Jenrick said: "I'm not sure it is actually wise to go to Moscow. I think that honours Vladimir Putin and plays into his hand... I just question the good sense of going to Moscow and honouring Vladimir Putin at a time when he is so aggressive towards Ukraine."

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