Here's the latest news on Russia and Ukraine: A FLURRY OF DIPLOMACY: As the world races to prevent war, leaders jumped on the phone this weekend to coordinate, warn and brace for the worst. U.S. President Joe Biden and Putin spoke Saturday, with Biden warning Putin he will face "severe costs" if he invades Ukraine, and Putin again reiterating complaints that Ukraine be barred from joining NATO, according to reports and readouts. The call produced "no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks," a senior Biden administration official said. On Sunday, Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reaffirming "the commitment of the United States to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity." Biden has been clear throughout the crisis, however, that U.S. troops will not engage in a direct fight with Russia. In the last 24 hours: Ukraine is seeking an urgent meeting with Russia and others in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to discuss Russia's troop build-up. Ukraine's ambassador to Britain, Vadym Prystaiko, backtracked on a controversial statement he'd made about Ukraine willing to be "flexible" about joining NATO. Global stock markets, meanwhile, are feeling the hurt as an invasion appears imminent. STATE TASK FORCE: My colleague Erin Banco has obtained documents that show the State Department has set up a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week task force to deal with issues related to the drawdown of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, including aiding private U.S. citizens in the country. The task force, which launched Saturday, is headed by Daniel Lawton , an official in the department's Europe bureau. The task force's creation is both standard operating procedure in a crisis like this, as well as a sign of how grave it is. The State Department confirmed the existence of the task force but avoided commenting on the details. A few more tidbits from yours truly: The Munich Security Conference, which starts Friday, should be more exciting than usual. It was 15 years ago at this annual gathering of the national security elite that Putin famously lashed out at the idea of a unipolar world and warned that the expansion of NATO "represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust." U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are expected to attend this year's event, while the Kremlin says it won't send anyone. Some analysts even suspect Putin will time his invasion to coincide with the 15th anniversary of his Munich appearance, although Feb. 16 is the date being bandied about by U.S. officials. For Harris in particular, this is a big moment on the global stage. Will the veep be speaking as the tanks are rolling in? — Afghanistan is looming over Ukraine. It's been six months since America began its chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan, and it's clear U.S. officials do not want a repeat of those horror-filled weeks. Among other things, they have been pushing Americans to leave Ukraine using commercial means while warning that the United States won't carry out a similar evacuation there. (The Afghan evacuation, U.S. officials tell me, was a one-off case borne of wild circumstances.) "We are taking the extraordinary measure of emailing and calling everyone who provided us contact information via the online form included in our recent travel advisories to ensure they have seen our latest recommendation to depart Ukraine immediately," a State Department spokesperson said. There are obviously some big differences, including that the U.S. isn't fighting an insurgency inside Ukraine. But there also are many echoes. Ukrainian leaders, for instance, have been worried that the loud war-talk from Washington could undermine the stability of the Kyiv government. It's similar to Afghan leaders' concerns that U.S. actions could destabilize their political institutions. — Scarred by Kabul? Some foreign policy observers have mused to me that maybe the Biden team is overly dire in its predictions about Ukraine because it so badly miscalculated how quickly the Taliban would capture Afghanistan. Then there's this: At least one nongovernment group that carried out evacuations of people from Afghanistan says it's preparing for a similar mission in Ukraine. SANCTIONS COORDINATION: Expect a sliding scale of sanctions depending on what Putin does. But that's entirely contingent on which countries have their measures prepared. The United States and its European allies have warned Putin that Russia will face massive sanctions if it attacks Ukraine. It's not yet clear, however, how united this response really will be. European nations are still working out their plans, and what's almost certain to happen is different packages of penalties being imposed at different times. The impact of sanctions on the economies of European countries, which are more intertwined with Russia than that of the United States, weighs on transatlantic minds. European officials have urged American lawmakers struggling to craft a package of sanctions on Russia to weigh their effect on the rest of the continent. In particular, Europeans are worried about the impact of secondary sanctions on Russian banks that could have a nasty spillover effect on European financial institutions. "We'll be ready for whichever path," a U.S. official familiar with the issue told me, noting that the Biden administration has prepared different sanctions measures for different invasion scenarios, such as a cyberattack or other mischief short of Russian tanks rolling over the border. "Any sort of invasion will incur the same swift response. But we have calibrated options for anything that's not an invasion." The official declined to get into further details, including whether unmanned drone strikes would count as an invasion. The question remains: How swift is swift, and will it include SWIFT?
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