Safe Airspace, which was set up to provide safety and conflict zone information for airlines after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, said it had increased its risk level to "do not fly".

During an appearance on a rightwing radio program, the hosts asked Trump about Putin recognizing two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent.

"Now that we see the invasion is beginning and Russia has made clear its wholesale rejection of diplomacy, it does not make sense to go forward with that meeting at this time," Blinken said.

The situation over Ukraine escalated when Russia, which has been massing troops near Ukraine for months, recognized on Monday the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent and ordered troops to be deployed there for "peacekeeping" missions.

As leader of the G20, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has called for the swift yet measured handling of the Ukraine crisis to avoid catastrophe at a time of urgent collaboration.

Speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, the Russian ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, also warned Western powers to 'think twice' and not worsen the situation in Ukraine.

Earlier, the Kremlin leader recognised the independence of two rebel-held areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine, paving the way for an operation to deploy part of the potential invasion force he has massed around the country.

"We are confronted with a very, very dramatic situation," France's ambassador to the United Nations Nicolas de Riviere told reporters before entering the council chamber.  France was among a handful of nations that called the emergency session at the instigation of Ukraine.

It was that intelligence that gave US President Joe Biden the confidence to say Friday he was "convinced" his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had decided to invade, the reports said.

A cross-border media investigation broke Sunday claiming that Switzerland's second-largest bank had held tens of billions of dollars of ill-gotten funds, claims based on an insider's massive data leak.

The two leaders accepted the idea of such a meeting after French President Emmanuel Macron held separate phone talks with both of them. Preparations will be made when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meet Thursday in Europe.

"The queen has today tested positive for COVID," the Palace said. "Her Majesty is experiencing mild cold like symptoms but expects to continue light duties at Windsor over the coming week."

A first hearing has been set for June 15 in Paris for civil proceedings that claim a violation of privacy and fundamental personal rights, and illicit use of her image.

"Unfortunately, at the moment, an attack, an invasion seems far more likely than unlikely but we will continue to work to try and avert that," James Cleverly told Sky News.

Epstein, who was arrested in New York in July 2019 on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex, was found hanged in his New York jail cell the following month while awaiting trial over abuses involving girls at his Palm Beach home and on his private island in the Caribbean.

Harris will also deliver a highly anticipated address warning Russia that an invasion would likely lead to an even bigger NATO footprint on its doorstep and that it will face huge financial costs if it invades Ukraine, according to a senior US administration official who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity.

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.