Biden said Friday that he expects the Russians to carry out the test “in the coming days or weeks”. On Sunday, US media reported that Biden’s administration had “firm information” that Russian President Vladimir Putin had already ordered his troops to carry out invasion plans on the border with Ukraine.

According to the information, The New York Times “More than 40 to 50 percent of the more than 150,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border have meanwhile moved into the war zone and will be able to launch an offensive within a few days.”

Part of the troops will consist of Russian security forces, who may be deployed as occupation forces after the invasion. According to the American media, government sources based on their report did not provide further details about the intelligence, but insisted that it was highly credible information.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Putin held another hour-long telephone conversation on Sunday evening about the situation in Ukraine. The French government says this is their second meeting after the two leaders spoke for about two hours on Sunday in an effort to prevent an armed conflict in Ukraine.

After that initial meeting, the two presidents stressed the need to continue to seek diplomatic solutions to the growing crisis in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement. Putin and Macron agreed on Sunday morning to a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, according to France’s Elysee.

Shortly before his first meeting with Putin, Macron spent half an hour on the phone with his Ukrainian envoy Volodymyr Zelensky discussing possible ways to mitigate the immediate expansion.

What exactly Putin and Macron discussed at the second meeting on Sunday evening has not yet been announced.

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