Russia needs to consider independence of separatist Ukraine regions, Putin says

Russian President Vladimir Putin convened top officials on Monday to consider recognizing the independence of separatist regions in Eastern Ukraine, a move that would ratchet up tensions with the West amid fears that the Kremlin could launch an invasion of Ukraine imminently.

The meeting of the presidential Security Council comes amid a spike in skirmishes in Eastern Ukraine that Western powers believe Russia could use as a pretext for an attack. Sustained shelling continued on Monday in the long-running conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Moscow separatists.

Leaders of the separatist Luhansk and Donetsk regions — who officially rejected Kyiv's control in 2014, shortly after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine — released televised statements earlier Monday pleading with Putin to recognize them as independent states and sign friendship treaties envisaging military aid to protect them from what they described as an ongoing Ukrainian military offensive.

Russia's lower house of parliament made the same plea last week.

Ukrainian authorities deny launching an offensive and accuse Russia of provocation amid intensifying shelling along the line of contact that separates the two sides.

Ukraine and the West consider the rebels controlling the two small eastern regions to be Russia's proxies and have been warning for weeks that Moscow might use them to fabricate a case for war.

Former president Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia's Security Council, said it was "obvious" that Ukraine did not need the two regions, and that a majority of Russians would support their independence.

The Kremlin initially signalled its reluctance to recognize the regions as independent, arguing that would effectively shatter a 2015 peace deal for Eastern Ukraine that marked a major diplomatic coup for Moscow, requiring Ukrainian authorities to offer a broad self-rule to the separatist regions.

But Putin argued on Monday that Ukrainian authorities have shown no appetite for implementing the deal.

The meeting comes after the U.S. and Russian presidents tentatively agreed to meet in a last-ditch effort to stave off a possible invasion of Ukraine.

If Russia invades, as the U.S. warns Moscow has already decided to do, the meeting will be off. Still, the prospect of a face-to-face summit resuscitated hopes that diplomacy could prevent a devastating conflict, which would result in massive casualties and huge economic damage across Europe, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy.

Russia has amassed an estimated 150,000 troops on three sides of Ukraine, a Western-looking democracy that has defied Moscow's attempts to pull it back into its orbit.

Even as diplomatic efforts inched forward, potential flashpoints multiplied. Fighting escalated in Eastern Ukraine, Russia said it had fended off an "incursion" from Ukraine — which Ukrainians officials denied — and Russia decided to prolong military drills in Belarus.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesperson, meanwhile, on Monday said Britain has seen intelligence suggesting Putin's invasion plan has begun.