President Joe Biden on Tuesday spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, directly raising concerns about the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border.
The call comes amid a surge of cease-fire violations in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-ba?ked separatists and Ukrainian forces have been locked in a conflict since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
More than 14,000 people have died in fighting in eastern Ukraine and efforts to negotiate a political settlement have stalled.
Western and Ukrainian officials have raised concerns about increasingly frequent cease-fire violations in the conflict area. Reports of Ukraine’s military casualties have been occurring daily over the past week, and rebels also have reported losses.
