Moscow has repeatedly denied it has any intention of invading Ukraine but has held several rounds of talks with Western countries and NATO on its demand for “security guarantees“ that the Atlantic alliance will expand no further and Ukraine will never become a member.

In his third conversation with the Russian president in two months,  Biden said Washington would respond "decisively and impose swift and severe costs" if Russia moved into Ukraine.

Western estimates put at about 30,000 the number of Russian troops taking part in the exercises – along with most of the Belarusian army.

Lukashenko’s support for Moscow stands in contrast with the neutrality he sought to adopt eight years ago when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and fomented a separatist revolt in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

In 2013 her career changed direction completely during a conversation she had with one of her old classmates who wanted to straighten his teeth with aligners.