Blinken calls Russian counterpart, raises concerns about ‘capacity to launch an invasion of Ukraine

In a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken “reiterated our ongoing concerns that Russia has the capacity to launch an invasion of Ukraine at any moment and emphasized the need to see verifiable, credible, meaningful de-escalation,” the State Department says.

“He underscored that, while further Russian aggression against Ukraine would result in a swift, severe, and united Transatlantic response, we remain committed to the diplomatic path and believe that a window remains to resolve the crisis peacefully,” the State Department added.

Biden to give remarks on Russia and Ukraine at 3:30 p.m. ET

500 American troops being deployed to Poland

Five hundred U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, are heading to Poland today to join other American forces in the region, a senior defense official tells Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin.

The official said the troops are part of the 3,000 ordered last week by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to head to Europe in response to the Ukraine situation.

Ukrainian Ministry of Defense says its working to restore website

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday that its website “was probably attacked by a [distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack]: an excessive number of requests per second was recorded.

“Technical works on restoration of regular functioning are carried out,” it added in a tweet.

Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Army websites hit by cyberattack: reports

The websites of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and the country’s army are currently down following a cyberattack, according to reports on Twitter citing Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security.

“The site is under maintenance.” reads a message currently being displayed on the Ministry of Defense’s website.

The reports also said two major Ukrainian banks — Oschadbank and Privat Bank — were affected, although the latter’s website appears to be online again

Putin: Russia is ready for talks with US and NATO

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow is ready for talks with the U.S. and NATO on limits for missile deployments and military transparency in Europe, according to the Associated Press.

The development comes after Russia announced it is pulling back some troops from military exercises that have raised fears of a potential invasion of Ukraine — although British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said “the intelligence that we’re seeing today is still not encouraging.”

Speaking after talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin said the U.S. and NATO rejected Moscow’s demand to keep Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations out of NATO, halt weapons deployments near Russian borders and roll back alliance forces from Eastern Europe.

But the U.S. and NATO have agreed to discuss a range of security measures that Russia had previously proposed.