MOSCOW, 11 December 2021, (TON): Russia kept up a barrage of hostile rhetoric toward Ukraine and compared the crisis there to the most dangerous moment of the Cold War as it waited for US President Joe Biden to invite it to possible talks with NATO countries.

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of moving heavy artillery toward the front line of fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the east of the former Soviet republic and failing to engage in a peace process.

State news agency quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying “the events in the Donbass, or the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, now resemble genocide.”

A Ukrainian warship headed toward the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia and its annexed peninsula of Crimea, and did not react to a Russian request to change its course, the Russian intelligence service (FSB) said of events that happened earlier.

The Ukrainian vessel later headed back, Interfax reported, citing FSB.

The Ukrainian defense minister said it was a search-and-rescue ship with no weapons on board.

“Negotiations on a peaceful settlement have practically hit a dead end,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters, referring to the seven-year conflict between Ukrainian and separatist forces in the eastern Donbass region.