Putin's Assistant Reveals What Biden Said During Call Amid "Hysteria" of War

Yuri Ushakov, assistant to Russian President Vladimir Putin, described the phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart on Saturday as "balanced and practical." However, he stated that America and NATO failed to address Russia's primary security concerns. According to Ushakov, Biden told Putin that he is "committed to the diplomatic path and has laid out a set of considerations that he believes address many of Russia's concerns." Ushakov added that Putin noted the West has ignored Russia's main security worries, and that the United States and its allies are "pumping" new weapons into Ukraine and encouraging provocations by Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region and Crimea. Ushakov remarked that the conversation, which lasted just over an hour, "took place in an atmosphere of hysteria regarding the alleged imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine by American officials, and everyone knows that... the pressure around the invasion topic has been coordinated to reach peak hysteria."