Kremlin says Putin to decide on counter sanctions against Washington

The Kremlin said on Friday that Moscow and Washington did not share the same vision of creating mutually beneficial ties and that President Vladimir Putin would decide what counter-sanctions to hit Washington with.

The Kremlin was speaking a day after the United States imposed a broad array of sanctions on Russia, including curbs to its sovereign debt market.

Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had repeatedly said that Russia was ready to cooperate with the United States as much as Washington wanted to cooperate with Moscow.

He did not say when counter-sanctions would be announced.

KREMLIN URGES MACRON, MERKEL TO EASE UKRAINE'S 'PROVOCATIONS'

The Kremlin on Friday called on French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to encourage Ukraine to observe ceasefire agreements in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists.

Macron and Merkel are scheduled to hold talks Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a show of support, as concerns mount in the West over the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine's border.

The build-up on the northern and eastern borders, as well as on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, comes amid a spike in violence along the front line between pro-Russia separatists and Ukrainian forces in the east of the country.

The German and French leaders should communicate to the Ukrainian leadership the "need to decisively stop any provocative actions on the contact line and emphasise the need for an unconditional observance of the ceasefire regime," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"There are fewer reports of ceasefire violations coming, and indeed the number of violations has decreased," Peskov noted.

But he added that it was necessary to continue "scrupulously monitoring the situation".

Ukraine's foreign minister said earlier this week that Russia was "openly threatening Ukraine with war" and vowed a coordinated military response with its allies to aggression orchestrated by Moscow.

The fresh bout of clashes in eastern Ukraine effectively ended a ceasefire agreed last July that ushered in a period of relative calm to the conflict.

The fighting, which has claimed more than 13,000 lives, has seen 28 Ukrainian soldiers killed since the start of the year compared to 50 in all of 2020.