By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, YURAS KAR­MANAU and LORNE COOK | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

MOSCOW (AP) — The U.S. and Russ­ian pres­i­dents have ten­ta­tive­ly agreed to meet in a last-ditch diplo­mat­ic ef­fort to stave off Moscow’s in­va­sion of Ukraine as heavy shelling con­tin­ued Mon­day in a con­flict in east­ern Ukraine that is feared will spark the Russ­ian of­fen­sive.

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron sought to bro­ker a pos­si­ble meet­ing be­tween U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin in a se­ries of phone calls that dragged in­to the night.

Macron’s of­fice said both lead­ers had “ac­cept­ed the prin­ci­ple of such a sum­mit,” to be fol­lowed by a broad­er sum­mit meet­ing al­so in­volv­ing oth­er “rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to dis­cuss se­cu­ri­ty and strate­gic sta­bil­i­ty in Eu­rope.” It added that the meet­ings “can on­ly be held on the con­di­tion that Rus­sia does not in­vade Ukraine.”

An instructor, right, shows a grenade during a training of members of a Ukrainian far-right group train, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. Russia extended military drills near Ukraine's northern borders Sunday amid increased fears that two days of sustained shelling along the contact line between soldiers and Russa-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine could spark an invasion. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

White House press sec­re­tary Jen Psa­ki, said the ad­min­is­tra­tion has been clear that “we are com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing diplo­ma­cy un­til the mo­ment an in­va­sion be­gins.” She not­ed that “cur­rent­ly, Rus­sia ap­pears to be con­tin­u­ing prepa­ra­tions for a full-scale as­sault on Ukraine very soon.”

Macron’s of­fice said that U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken and Russ­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov are set to lay the ground­work for the sum­mit when they meet Thurs­day.

It fol­lowed a flur­ry of calls by Macron to Putin, Biden and al­so British Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son and Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy.

Krem­lin spokesman Dmit­ry Peskov said Mon­day that Putin and Biden could meet if they con­sid­er it nec­es­sary, but em­pha­sized that “it’s pre­ma­ture to talk about spe­cif­ic plans for a sum­mit.”

“The meet­ing is pos­si­ble if the lead­ers con­sid­er it fea­si­ble,” he said in a con­fer­ence call with re­porters.

Tetyana Tomenko, a local resident, cries standing in front of her damaged house after alleged shelling by separatists forces in Novognativka, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. Russia is extending military drills near Ukraine's northern borders after two days of sustained shelling along the contact line between Ukrainian soldiers and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The exercises in Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north, originally were set to end on Sunday. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

The prospec­tive meet­ing of­fers new hope of avert­ing a Russ­ian in­va­sion that U.S. of­fi­cials said could be­gin any mo­ment with an es­ti­mat­ed 150,000 Russ­ian troops amassed near Ukraine.

Adding to fears of an im­mi­nent at­tack, Rus­sia and its al­ly Be­larus an­nounced Sun­day that they were ex­tend­ing mas­sive war games on Be­laru­sian ter­ri­to­ry that of­fers a con­ve­nient bridge­head for an at­tack on the Ukrain­ian cap­i­tal, Kyiv, lo­cat­ed just 75 kilo­me­ters (less than 50 miles) south of the bor­der with Be­larus.

Start­ing Thurs­day, shelling al­so spiked along the tense line of con­tact be­tween Ukrain­ian forces and Russ­ian-backed sep­a­ratist rebels in Ukraine’s east­ern in­dus­tri­al heart­land, Don­bas, where over 14,000 peo­ple have been killed since con­flict erupt­ed in 2014 short­ly af­ter Moscow’s an­nex­a­tion of Ukraine’s Crimean Penin­su­la.

Ukraine and the rebels have trad­ed blame for mas­sive cease-fire vi­o­la­tions with hun­dreds of ex­plo­sions record­ed dai­ly.

On Fri­day, sep­a­ratist of­fi­cials an­nounced the evac­u­a­tion of civil­ians and mil­i­tary mo­bi­liza­tion in the face of what they de­scribed as an im­mi­nent Ukrain­ian of­fen­sive on the rebel re­gions. Ukrain­ian of­fi­cials have strong­ly de­nied any plans to launch such an at­tack and de­scribed the evac­u­a­tion or­der as part of Russ­ian provo­ca­tions in­tend­ed to set the stage for an in­va­sion.

A boy plays with a weapon as an instructor shows a Kalashnikov assault rifle while training members of a Ukrainian far-right group train, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. Russia extended military drills near Ukraine's northern borders Sunday amid increased fears that two days of sustained shelling along the contact line between soldiers and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine could spark an invasion. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

The sep­a­ratist au­thor­i­ties said Mon­day that at least four civil­ians were killed by Ukrain­ian shelling over the past 24 hours and sev­er­al oth­ers were in­jured. Ukraine’s mil­i­tary said two Ukrain­ian sol­diers were killed over the week­end, and an­oth­er ser­vice­man was wound­ed Mon­day.

Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary spokesman Pavlo Ko­valchyuk said the Ukrain­ian po­si­tions were shelled 80 times Sun­day and eight times ear­ly Mon­day, not­ing that the sep­a­ratists were “cyn­i­cal­ly fir­ing from res­i­den­tial ar­eas us­ing civil­ians as shields.” He in­sist­ed that Ukrain­ian forces weren’t re­turn­ing fire.

In the vil­lage of Novog­na­tiv­ka on the gov­ern­ment-con­trolled side, 60-year-old Eka­te­ri­na Evsee­va, said the shelling was worse than at the height of fight­ing ear­ly in the con­flict.

“It’s worse than 2014,” she said, her voice trem­bling. “We are on the edge of ner­vous break­downs. And there is nowhere to run.”

Evsee­va said that res­i­dents were hun­ker­ing down in base­ments amid the re­newed fight­ing: “Yes­ter­day I saw my neigh­bour with her 2-month-old as she was run­ning to the base­ment. It shouldn’t be like this.”

Demonstrators march along the street in Odessa, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. Thousands of people in Odessa marched through the streets of the city in a show of unity on Sunday, marking the date on which, eight years ago, more than a hundred people were killed during Ukraine's Maidan revolution. Waving national flags and placards with slogans such as, 'No Putin, No Cry', people said they had come out to demonstrate against a potential Russian invasion, and said that they were prepared to defend their city if needed. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Amid the height­ened in­va­sion fears, the Krem­lin re­act­ed an­gri­ly to a New York Times re­port that the U.S. ad­min­is­tra­tion has sent a let­ter to the Unit­ed Na­tions hu­man rights chief claim­ing that Moscow has com­piled a list of Ukraini­ans to be killed or sent to de­ten­tion camps af­ter the in­va­sion. Peskov, the Krem­lin spokesman, said the claim was a lie and no such list ex­ists.

Moscow de­nies any plans to in­vade Ukraine, but wants West­ern guar­an­tees that NA­TO won’t al­low Ukraine and oth­er for­mer So­vi­et coun­tries to join as mem­bers. It al­so urges the al­liance to halt weapons de­ploy­ments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from East­ern Eu­rope — de­mands flat­ly re­ject­ed by the West.

Russ­ian of­fi­cials have shrugged off West­ern calls to deesca­late by pulling back troops, ar­gu­ing that Moscow is free to de­ploy troops and con­duct drills wher­ev­er it likes on its ter­ri­to­ry. Last week, West­ern of­fi­cials dis­missed Russ­ian state­ments about some of the troops re­turn­ing to their bases, say­ing that Moscow was ac­tu­al­ly beef­ing up its forces around Ukraine.

De­spite Biden’s as­ser­tion last week that Putin has made the de­ci­sion to roll Russ­ian forces in­to Ukraine, Ukrain­ian of­fi­cials sought to project calm, say­ing that they aren’t see­ing in­va­sion as im­mi­nent.

De­fense Min­is­ter Olek­sii Reznikov said Mon­day that Rus­sia has amassed 147,000 troops around Ukraine, in­clud­ing 9,000 in Be­larus, ar­gu­ing that the num­ber is clear­ly in­suf­fi­cient for an of­fen­sive on the Ukrain­ian cap­i­tal from the north.

“The talk about an at­tack on Kyiv from the Be­laru­sian side sounds ridicu­lous,” he said, charg­ing that Rus­sia is us­ing the troops there as a scare.

Civilians study weapons during a training session by Ukrainian right-wing group Right Sector in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. Russia extended military drills near Ukraine's northern borders Sunday amid increased fears that two days of sustained shelling along the contact line between soldiers and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine could spark an invasion. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Rus­sia upped the ante Sat­ur­day with sweep­ing nu­clear drills that in­clud­ed mul­ti­ple prac­tice launch­es of in­ter­con­ti­nen­tal bal­lis­tic mis­siles and cruise mis­siles that Putin per­son­al­ly over­saw.

The Eu­ro­pean Union’s top diplo­mat, for­eign pol­i­cy chief Josep Bor­rell, wel­comed the prospect of a Biden-Putin sum­mit but said that should diplo­ma­cy fail the 27-na­tion bloc has fi­nal­ized its pack­age of sanc­tions for use if Putin or­ders an in­va­sion.

“The work is done. We are ready,” said Bor­rell, who is chair­ing a meet­ing of EU for­eign min­is­ters and was tasked with draw­ing up a list of peo­ple in Rus­sia to be hit with as­set freezes and trav­el bans. He pro­vid­ed no de­tails about who might be tar­get­ed.

Ger­man For­eign Min­is­ter An­nale­na Baer­bock wel­comed Macron’s sum­mit ini­tia­tive and warned Rus­sia against any false flag ac­tion to pro­voke hos­til­i­ties. “I ap­peal ur­gent­ly to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, to the Russ­ian pres­i­dent: Don’t play with hu­man lives,” she said as she ar­rived at the EU top diplo­mats’ meet­ing.

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Yuras Kar­manau re­port­ed from Kyiv, Ukraine; and Lorne Cook from Brus­sels. Lori Hin­nant in Kyiv; An­gela Charl­ton in Paris; Zeke Miller and Aamer Mad­hani in Mu­nich, Ger­many; Geir Moul­son in Berlin; and Ellen Knick­mey­er, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee and Dar­lene Su­perville in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.