German chancellor Olaf Scholz visits Ukraine and Russia as fears rise of imminent invasion

Hopes are low for a breakthrough in diplomacy as the United States warns of an invasion ‘any day now’

Western leaders are racing to defuse escalating tensions over the Ukraine crisis amid warnings that Russia could invade “any day now”.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz is in Kiev today to meet with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and before heading to Moscow on Tuesday to meet with Vladimir Putin.

Mr Scholz, who has only been in the post for a few months, said on Sunday that any Russian attack on Ukraine would lead to “tough sanctions that we have carefully prepared and which we can immediately put into force.”

Ahead of the meeting with Mr Putin, German officials sought to play down expectations of a breakthrough, with one source telling Reuters that Berlin was not expecting “concrete results”.

Mr Scholz and Mr Zelenskiy are expected to talk about how Germany could help Ukraine’s economy in the event on an invasion. A discussion about Ukraine’s eligibility for Nato accession is not expected.

Ukraine’s ambassador in London, Vadym Prystaiko, told the BBC that Kiev was willing to be “flexible” on its ambition to join the security alliance, in what would amount to a major concession to Moscow in response to the build-up of Russian troops on its borders.

Moscow denies it is planning an attack - accusing the West of “hysteria” for suggesting so despite amassing soldiers near Ukraine and carrying out huge military drills with Belarus. Russia has issued written demands that Nato forgo any further expansion eastwards including Ukraine. The alliance’s members have rejected the demand.

Ukraine has asked for a meeting with Russia within 48 hours to discuss the rising tensions, made via the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

This comes after Moscow failed to reply to a formal request from Ukraine asking them to explain why they have around 130,000 troops positioned near Ukraine’s border.

“If Russia is serious when it talks about the indivisibility of security in the OSCE space, it must fulfil its engagement to military transparency in order to de-escalate tensions and enhance security for all,” Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

The Belarus government responded to a similar request from Baltic nations, but said that some of the Russian units in its country were there to guard the border - suggesting they would not be leaving when current military exercises had been due to end.

Mr Zelensky has also invited US president Joe Biden to Kiev to show solidarity.

In Washington, Mr Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that an invasion could begin “any day now”.

“We cannot perfectly predict the day, but we have now been saying for some time that we are in the window,” he told CNN.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that relations between Moscow and Washington were “lying on the floor” - despite recent last ditch attempts at diplomacy.

The leaders of the two nations spoke on the phone on Saturday, something Mr Peskov admitted was a “plus”.

“This is a plus,” he said, “because you know that just a couple of years ago there was zero dialogue, there were no such contacts whatsoever.

“But on the rest, unfortunately, in bilateral relations one can only talk about negatives. We are at a very, very low point. They are actually lying on the floor”.

UK armed forces minister James Heappey had a similarly bleak assessment, writing in The Times that Europe was closer to war on the continent than it has been for 70 years.

He said that Russia has put in place the logistical means for an invasion of Ukraine that go beyond diplomatic showmanship.

British PM Boris Johnson will hold talks with world leaders this week in an attempt to bring Russia "back from the brink" of war, and it is understood he is keen to engage with Nordic and Baltic countries.

In other developments, a German military aircraft carrying troop reinforcements landed in Lithuania on Monday, the first of several planned Nato deployments.

The A400M airplane carried around 70 soldiers of what is expected to grow to a 360-strong German deployment, which comes on top of existing Nato forces in the region, a spokesperson for the alliance’s enhanced forward presence battlegroup said.