Ukraine's leader requests a talk with Putin, gets no answer

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s leader has asked for a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Russian troop buildup across his country’s border and the escalating tensions in eastern Ukraine, but the request has not been answered so far, his spokeswoman said Monday.

The concentration of Russian troops along the frontier comes amid a surge of cease-fire violations in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-baсked separatists and Ukrainian forces have been locked in a conflict since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

and the United States said Monday they are “deeply concerned by the large ongoing build-up of Russian military forces on Ukraine’s borders and in illegally-annexed Crimea.” They said the large scale troop movements are threatening and destabilizing and urged Russia “to cease its provocations.”.

She said Russia has accumulated 41,000 troops at its border with eastern Ukraine and 42,000 more in Crimea.

Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said Monday that Germany has been following the Russian military buildup along the border with Ukraine very closely, adding it has been “of great concern to us.”.