"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.

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.