During a contentious G20 meeting hosted by Indonesia, Freeland directly addressed Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina and warned them that Russia would face "crushing" sanctions in the event of an invasion.

Over the weekend, civilians were evacuated from increasingly barraged front line regions where Kyiv said Saturday two of its soldiers had died in an attack -- the first fatalities in the conflict in more than a month.

News of the drills come as Russia announces the pullback of troops from around Ukraine, a force that had driven concerns in the West -- particularly Washington -- that Moscow was planning an imminent attack.

Bolsonaro was hosted at the Kremlin as Western leaders remain fearful of a Russian attack on its neighbour Ukraine.

In a dramatic, previously unscheduled speech to the United Nations in New York, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said intelligence showed Moscow could order an assault on its neighbor in the "coming days."

The Group of 20 –- which brings together the world's top economies including the US, China and some European nations -- is holding talks in hybrid format in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. 

"Units of the southern military district that ended tactical exercises at training grounds on the Crimean peninsula are returning by rail to their permanent bases," the defence ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies. 

A report by six members of the body, adopted in early February and published online this week, warns that "today's communication is characterised by a degradation that must not be seen as inevitable".

"The goal would be occupying major cities" such as the capital Kyiv, "not to conquer them but rather, to take them hostage" and eventually force a change in government, Yu Koizumi, an expert in Russian military and security affairs, told Kyodo News, as Russia's troops amassed on Ukraine border's have become the largest since the 1991 Soviet Union collapse.

Russian media published articles and photographs this week of purported secret mass graves in Donbass, controlled by Moscow-aligned secessionists who have been battling Ukrainian government forces since 2014.

"Units of the Southern Military District, having completed their participation in tactical exercises, are moving to their permanent deployment points," Moscow's defence ministry said in a statement.

Political pundits wondered how the mild-mannered Scholz, who took office in December, would fare treading into "the lion's den". Russian officials have been known to publicly taunt or seek to outplay their visitors in a test of their mettle.

About 20 cases of the highly lethal form of avian flu have been reported in the Netherlands this year, Reuters reported.

But Volodymyr Zelensky could be having the last laugh as Russia begins pulling back forces from Ukraine's frontiers without staging an attack -- just as he had told Washington they would.

The stretching table has featured in photographs splashed across the internet in recent days, as the Russian president sits with Western leaders eager to defuse tensions over a feared Ukrainian invasion. 

"We are ready to work further together. We are ready to go down the negotiations track," Putin told a press conference following talks in Moscow with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Trump's 2016 presidential run is often cited as a blueprint for the current campaign of former French talk show commentator Zemmour, who has been convicted several times for inciting racial hatred. Zemmour denies he is racist.

Russia's Interfax news agency cited the ministry as saying that while large-scale drills across the country continued, some units of the Southern and Western military districts had completed their exercises and started returning to base.

Truss told Sky News that were Russian troops to enter Ukraine, they could get to Kyiv quickly.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said its embassy in Kiev has been operating "as normal" while urging the United States and its allies not to "hype the crisis."

US intelligence has been closely monitoring troop, equipment and other moves in the region, while trying to factor in international events, like the Beijing Olympics and an upcoming meeting of Western allies.

While Russia said it was ending some military drills, signalling a possible easing of the crisis, in Washington the alert level remained high -- with a top official calling the threat of invasion "more real than ever before."

Dutch airline KLM said it would halt flights to Ukraine and through the country's airspace, while Germany's Lufthansa said it was considering a suspension.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan repeated that a Russian invasion could begin any day and President Joe Biden has said he will support Ukraine after any invasion and defend NATO territory.

Russia has more than 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, which is not part of the Atlantic military alliance, and Washington - while keeping open the diplomatic channels that have so far failed to ease the crisis - has repeatedly said an invasion is imminent.

"I am convinced that your visit to Kyiv in the coming days... would be a powerful signal and help stabilise the situation," the presidency quoted Zelensky as telling Biden in a phone call earlier Sunday.

"There was no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks," the official said following the phone call between the two leaders, referring to the tension over Russia's military buildup on the borders of Ukraine.

The US military however denied the account.

"We ordered the departure of most of the Americans still at the US embassy in Kyiv. The risk of Russian military action is high enough and the threat is imminent enough that this is the prudent thing to do," Blinken told a news conference in Honolulu.

The evacuation follows similar announcements from the United States and Canada, and comes after a frenzy of telephone diplomacy failed to ease mounting regional tensions Saturday.