Since Emmanuel Macron met Monday with President Vladimir Putin to try to defuse the crisis on the Russia-Ukraine border, US officials have either remained silent or even sounded skeptical about what European countries have called progress in averting war.

Washington-Moscow tensions are at their highest since the Cold War, with some US estimates saying some 130,000 Russian soldiers are grouped in dozens of combat brigades near the border with Ukraine.

Indonesia has signed a deal to buy six Rafale fighter jets from France in its initial purchase of a larger contract of a total 42, the government announced on Thursday, as bilateral ties between Jakarta and Paris reached an all time high.

The head of state will go to a key turbine manufacturing site in eastern France on a pre-election visit dedicated to energy policy and the future of the country's atomic industry, which provides around 70 percent of French electricity.

His trip Thursday coincides with crisis talks in Moscow between British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and her counterpart Sergei Lavrov, as the UK and other US-led allies demand Russia halt its threats against Ukraine.

As in 2020, less than half of the world's population is living in a democracy but the trend has deteriorated further, the London-based analysis group said. 

French President Emmanuel Macron met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday amid a flurry of European diplomacy aimed at defusing fears that Moscow could invade Ukraine. 

Far-right candidates Marine Le Pen of the National Rally (RN) and especially the former pundit Eric Zemmour have railed against Islam in frequent diatribes invoking security and terrorism risks.

Macron, who in contrast to the US and British leaders, has played down the likelihood that Russia may soon invade its neighbour, shuttled from Moscow to Kyiv on Tuesday in a bid to mediate a settlement and avoid war.

Arriving in Berlin after two days of talks that took him to Kyiv and Moscow, Macron urged continued "firm dialogue" with Russia as the only way to defuse fears Russia could invade its ex-Soviet neighbour.

Emerging from a meeting in the Kremlin that lasted more than five hours, the two leaders voiced hope that a solution could be found to the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

“Indonesia calls upon all parties to exercise utmost restraint and to give maximum chance for dialogue and diplomacy to succeed. Conflict benefits no one,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The situation is too complex to expect decisive breakthroughs in one meeting," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters ahead of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a week ago Ukraine was not a sinking Titanic and accused Washington and media of fuelling panic that weighed on the economy when there were "no tanks in the streets".

"We are in the window. Any day now, Russia could take military action against Ukraine, or it could be a couple of weeks from now, or Russia could choose to take the diplomatic path instead," Sullivan told the "Fox News Sunday" program.

The two leaders "discussed ongoing diplomatic and deterrence efforts in response to Russia's continued military build-up on Ukraine's borders, and affirmed their support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the White House said in a statement.

Johnson has been engulfed in a state of crisis for around three months, with some lawmakers in his own party saying he should quit following lockdown parties held at his residence during the pandemic, and other issues.

In a letter written to mark the 70th anniversary of her accession to the throne, Elizabeth said the occasion had given her pause to reflect upon the loyalty and affection shown to her by the British public.

About 100,000 Russian troops have been stationed at the border of Ukraine, prompting the Indonesian mission in Kyiv to step up citizen protection protocols in case tensions in the region escalate into violence.

The city's mayor denied any decision had been made, a day after a municipality spokeswoman told AFP that officials had green-lighted the shipbuilder's request to remove the central section of the iconic Koningshaven Bridge, sparking widespread criticism on social media.

Reuters could not independently verify the images from US-based Maxar Technologies, which it said were taken from Jan. 19 to Feb. 1.

"We reject the practice of 'collective punishment' for acts perpetrated by individual people, which has recently become a frequent occurrence," Putin said in a recent interview with the official China Global Television Network.

"We do have information that the Russians are likely to want to fabricate a pretext for an invasion," said Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby.

A guest curator's opinion article was supposed to promote a Rijksmuseum exhibition called "Revolusi! Indonesia Independent", but it elicited a strong public emotional response from the Dutch instead.

The Turkish official told Reuters that Ankara expects tensions to ease after the meeting in Kyiv. On Wednesday, Ankara and Kyiv said they would sign a free trade agreement and other deals.

Bezos's gigantic, 430-million-euro ($485 million) yacht is too big for the iconic Koningshaven Bridge, which dates from 1878 and was rebuilt after being bombed by the Nazis in 1940 during World War II.

Romania has sought to address its own security concerns after Russia massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine's borders. It has prompted fears of a conflict that could spill over into Romania, which has a 600-kilometre (370-mile) border with Ukraine.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki sought to unpick a tangle caused by her word choice in a briefing last week when she said the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops massed on the borders could be "imminent." 

With Russia refusing to pull back 100,000 troops poised on Ukraine's borders, 1,000 US soldiers in Germany are being sent to Romania, and another 2,000 stationed in the United States are being flown to Germany and Poland.

"The Church is not the way God wants it," the man repeated in English, as he stood in the back of the audience hall holding his mask in his hand and gesticulating.