The President of the United States Joe Biden, during a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, "clearly" voiced the specific reasons for Washington's concern about the situation around Ukraine. This statement was made by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Monday, December 13.
Thus, he answered the question about the existence of "conceptual differences" between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine.
"I think the president was very, very clear with Putin about what causes for concern we had and what consequences would result from another invasion," he said during a briefing broadcast on the US Defense Department's Twitter page.
At the same time, Kirby declined to comment on the nature and other details of these disagreements.
On December 12, the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov said that after the conversation with Biden, Vladimir Putin did not have any special reasons for joy, since the situation at the moment is very serious.
On the same day, Peskov spoke about the tone of the talks between Putin and Biden. According to him, the presidents of Russia and the United States communicated concretely during the negotiations and did not allow discrepancies, even despite the friendly nature of the conversations.
The online summit of the leaders of Russia and the United States was held on December 7 in a tete-a-tete format. The negotiations were held behind closed doors via a secure video link and lasted about two hours. The Kremlin said that the summit was frank and businesslike.
During the conversation, the situation in Ukraine, NATO's expansion to the east, Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear program, cybersecurity and the issue of bilateral relations were discussed.
