Russia and Ukraine have both hailed some progress in international efforts to ease their conflict but traded accusations about each other's commitment to peace.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the recent diplomatic offensive by its allies had helped to keep a feared Russian military incursion at bay even as tens of thousands of Russian troops remain stationed along his country's borders.
"Diplomacy works and is restraining Russia's aggressive intentions," Kuleba said.
Russia has repeatedly denied any intentions to invade Ukraine.
Kyiv has become the centre of international politics in recent days thanks to visits from heads of state and government, Kuleba noted.
A prepared sanctions package will remain in place even if the situation eases and will continue to hang over Russia "like a sword of Damocles," Ukraine's top diplomat said.
He also said that the more than 1000 tonnes of ammunition and weapons delivered to Ukraine were having an effect.
"This is not the reaction (Russian President Vladimir) Putin expected," Kuleba added.
The United States and other NATO allies have offered arms and military support to Ukraine in recent weeks.
The US is in the process of deploying almost 1000 US soldiers to Romania to bolster NATO's eastern flank after relocating others to Poland.
Spain and the Netherlands have also committed to deploying military personnel and fighter jets to Bulgaria, the defence ministry in Sofia said on Wednesday following reports of repeated Russian provocations over the Black Sea in recent years.
Alongside efforts to prevent a new escalation in the Ukraine conflict with Russia, the leaders of France and Germany have also been lobbying for the revival of a stalled peace plan negotiated with their help for eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian government troops have been battling against separatist forces supported by Russia in the Donbas region since 2014, in a conflict that has cost about 14,000 lives, according to United Nations estimates.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin praised French President Emmanuel Macron's mediation efforts.
Macron stressed at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that implementing the 2015 plan was the only way to settle the conflict, Peskov said.
"That's right, and it's a good sign," he added, according to the Interfax agency.
Meanwhile, the top Russian official accused Ukraine of not committing to the agreements laid out in the so-called Minsk process.
"There are some positive trends as well as less positive ones," Peskov added.
Earlier on Wednesday, a Russian foreign ministry official had lashed out at some countries for implying that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would bring gas directly from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, could be scrapped as part of possible sanctions in the latest flare-up.
Deputy Foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said the pipeline was being used as "leverage" in the Ukraine conflict at the behest of the US.
"This is unfortunately a reflection of the existing realities in Europe and in NATO," Ryabkov said, according to the Interfax news agency.
He argued that the European Union and NATO were not even trying to weigh their own interests properly in the long term.
During German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's visit to the White House on Monday, US President Joe Biden said that any invasion would spell the end of Nord Stream 2.
Officials in Berlin have been slower to commit to halting the pipeline, with Scholz merely saying the US and Germany were agreed on sanctions despite calls for a tougher stance.
Scholz said on Wednesday that he would continue to pursue a "dual approach" in the Ukraine conflict, combining dialogue with warnings to Russia.
"We together must make it very clear to Russia, that there will be severe consequences if there is an act of aggression," he said.
Amid the border stand-off, Putin has demanded security guarantees of NATO, namely that the military alliance halt its eastward expansion and never admit Ukraine as a member.
NATO and the US wrote back in response to these demands.
Ryabkov said Russia was still examining the response.
Australian Associated Press
