Kremlin decries US ‘peak hysteria’ over Ukraine after Biden-Putin call

MOSCOW — The Kremlin denounces US “peak hysteria” surrounding the Ukraine conflict but says Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden have agreed to continue dialogue.

Speaking after new phone talks between Putin and Biden, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy advisor Yury Ushakov tells a conference call: “Hysteria has reached its peak.”

Ushakov says that the US side requested to arrange phone talks between Biden and Putin today even though such a call had initially been planned for Monday.

The two leaders spoke after Washington warned that an all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine could begin “any day.”

Ushakov complains about the US claims, saying that Americans even released “the date of the Russian invasion.”

“We don’t understand why false information about our intentions is being passed to the media,” he tells reporters.

He says that Putin once again complained that the West has been arming Ukraine and that Kyiv authorities have been “sabotaging” Western-brokered peace agreements to end a years-long conflict in eastern Ukraine.

At the same time Ushakov calls the one-hour phone talks between the two leaders “balanced and business-like” and added that “the presidents have agreed to continue contacts at all levels.”