MOSCOW, Feb 2, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - NATO leaders pursued diplomatic efforts 
on the Ukraine crisis Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin accused the 
West of trying to draw Russia into a war but left the door open to further 
talks.

   British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was to talk by phone to Putin a day 
after visiting Kyiv, where Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was the latest 
NATO leader to visit in shows of solidarity with Ukraine.

   Recent weeks have seen a flurry of diplomacy to avert a feared Russian 
invasion of Ukraine, after Moscow amassed tens of thousands of troops on the 
pro-Western country's borders.

   Western leaders have warned that any attack would be met with "severe 
consequences" including wide-ranging economic sanctions.

   Russia denies any plans to invade, instead accusing the West of failing to 
respect Moscow's security concerns on its borders.

   Russian officials have put forward a series of demands to ease tensions, 
including bans on Ukraine joining NATO and the deployment of missile systems 
near Russia's borders, as well as a pullback of the US-led military 
alliance's forces in eastern Europe.

   In his first major remarks on the crisis in weeks, Putin on Tuesday 
accused the West of ignoring Russia's demands and suggested Washington was 
using Ukraine as an instrument to potentially draw Moscow into a conflict.

   "Ukraine itself is just a tool to achieve this goal" of containing Russia, 
Putin said at a press conference with the Hungarian leader.

   "This can be done in different ways. Drawing us into some kind of armed 
conflict. And to force, among other things, their allies in Europe to impose 
the tough sanctions against us that the United States is talking about."

   - Rush of visits to Ukraine -

   Putin said he hoped that "in the end we will find a solution, although it 
will not be simple." 

   US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei 
Lavrov held a phone call on Tuesday, with Lavrov saying afterwards that 
Washington had agreed to further discussions.

   The United States and NATO have provided written responses to Moscow's 
demands, which Putin said he is studying.

  In the meantime Western leaders have been rushing to Ukraine to meet with 
President Volodymyr Zelensky.

  Johnson and the Polish prime minister were in Kyiv on Tuesday ahead of 
Rutte, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was due in Ukraine on 
Thursday.

  Erdogan will try to leverage his strategic position in NATO and rapport 
with Putin to help resolve the crisis, though Ankara's supplying of combat 
drones to Ukraine has angered Moscow. 

  The French and German foreign ministers are also expected in Ukraine next 
week, with plans for them to visit the frontline in the east where Kyiv's 
forces are battling Russian-backed separatists.

  Putin has said that French President Emmanuel Macron could also be 
travelling to Moscow in the coming days.

  Ukraine has been battling Moscow-backed insurgencies in two separatist 
regions since 2014, when Moscow annexed the peninsula of Crimea.

  More than 13,000 people have been killed in the fighting, the last major 
ongoing war in Europe.

  Kyiv has welcomed the Western support against the Russian build-up, but 
officials have also urged caution, with Zelensky warning against creating 
"panic" with talk of an invasion at any moment.