By GEIR MOUL­SON | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

BERLIN (AP) — Diplo­mat­ic ef­forts to head off what U.S. of­fi­cials have warned could be an im­mi­nent Russ­ian at­tack on Ukraine en­tered a new round on Mon­day as Ger­many’s chan­cel­lor met the Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent in Kyiv.

Britain’s prime min­is­ter says Eu­rope is “on the edge of a precipice,” cit­ing an Amer­i­can warn­ing that Rus­sia could in­vade Ukraine in the next 48 hours. But he says there’s still time for Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin to “step back.”

And Rus­sia’s top diplo­mat has ad­vised Putin to con­tin­ue talks with the West on Russ­ian se­cu­ri­ty de­mands, ar­gu­ing that pos­si­bil­i­ties for talks haven’t been ex­haust­ed.

Here’s a look at what is hap­pen­ing where and why:

WHAT IS THE GER­MAN LEADER BRING­ING?

Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Olaf Scholz’s first vis­it to Kyiv since tak­ing of­fice in De­cem­ber comes be­fore his first vis­it to Moscow on Tues­day. It’s part of a flur­ry of in-per­son and re­mote diplo­ma­cy by West­ern lead­ers.

Scholz was tak­ing a mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty to Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy af­ter crit­i­cism of Ger­many for its re­fusal to join some al­lies in send­ing lethal weapons to the coun­try.

Scholz said Sun­day that Ukraine could “be sure that we will show the nec­es­sary sol­i­dar­i­ty, as we did in the past,” point­ing to fi­nan­cial aid to Kyiv in the past.

He re­newed his warn­ing that Russ­ian mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion against Ukraine “will lead to tough re­spons­es and sanc­tions that we have care­ful­ly pre­pared and that we can make ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, to­geth­er with our al­lies in Eu­rope and in NA­TO.”

Scholz will meet Putin on Tues­day.

In Berlin, Ger­many’s fi­nance min­is­ter said the Group of Sev­en in­dus­tri­al pow­ers would make a tough joint re­sponse to any Russ­ian vi­o­la­tion of Ukraine’s “po­lit­i­cal and ter­ri­to­r­i­al bor­ders.” He said the group, which Ger­many cur­rent­ly chairs, has “as­sured Ukraine that we will con­tin­ue to sup­port its eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and al­so will keep in sight the fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty of Ukraine in this cri­sis.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz boards a government plane at the Berlin airport in Schoenefeld near Berlin, Germany, Monday, Feb 14, 2022 . German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is flying to Ukraine on Monday and to Russia on Tuesday this week in an effort to help defuse escalating tensions between the countries. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

WHAT’S THE TIME­LINE FOR A RUSS­IAN MOVE?

British Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son says Eu­rope is “on the edge of a precipice,” cit­ing an Amer­i­can warn­ing that Rus­sia could in­vade Ukraine in the next 48 hours.

“But there is still time for Pres­i­dent Putin to step back,” John­son said.

John­son urged a unit­ed re­sponse from NA­TO. He said, “the world needs to learn the les­son of 2014,” when not enough was done to move away from Russ­ian gas and oil fol­low­ing Rus­sia’s an­nex­a­tion of Crimea and ac­tiv­i­ty in east­ern Ukraine.

He said Eu­rope need­ed to wean it­self off “Russ­ian hy­dro­car­bons” and re­peat­ed his call for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Rus­sia to Ger­many to be scrapped.

John­son’s spokesman, Max Blain, de­clined to say whether the U.K. agreed with the U.S. that Wednes­day is a po­ten­tial in­va­sion date. But he said “there is a grave pos­si­bil­i­ty of an in­va­sion this week.”

Sep­a­rate­ly, the head of non-NA­TO-mem­ber Swe­den’s mil­i­tary forces said Rus­sia has “all the need­ed ca­pac­i­ty along the Ukrain­ian bor­der for a mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion.”

“We do not ex­clude any­thing,” Gen. Mi­cael By­den, the head of Swe­den’s Armed Forces. “Whether it hap­pens to­day, on Wednes­day or a week, we do not know.”

WHAT IS RUS­SIA SAY­ING?

Rus­sia’s top diplo­mat ad­vised Putin on Mon­day to con­tin­ue talks with the West on Russ­ian se­cu­ri­ty de­mands amid ten­sions over Ukraine.

Speak­ing at the start of a meet­ing with Putin, For­eign Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov sug­gest­ed that Moscow should con­tin­ue a di­a­logue with the U.S. and its al­lies even though they have re­ject­ed Rus­sia’s main se­cu­ri­ty de­mands.

FILE - Soldiers of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment line up vehicles at the military airfield in Vilseck, Germany, Feb. 9, 2022 as they prepare for their deployment to Romania in support NATO allies and demonstrate U.S. commitment to NATO Article V. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz planning to travel to Ukraine and Russia on Monday, Feb. 14, 2022, in an effort to help defuse escalating tensions as Western intelligence officials warn that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is increasingly imminent. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

He not­ed that the U.S. has of­fered to con­duct di­a­logue on lim­its for mis­sile de­ploy­ments in Eu­rope, re­stric­tions on mil­i­tary drills and oth­er con­fi­dence-build­ing mea­sures.

Asked by Putin if it made sense to con­tin­ue diplo­mat­ic ef­forts, Lavrov re­spond­ed that pos­si­bil­i­ties for talks haven’t been ex­haust­ed and pro­posed to con­tin­ue the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

AND WHAT IF TALKS DON’T SUC­CEED?

Poland is mak­ing prepa­ra­tions to ac­cept Ukrain­ian refugees in the event of an­oth­er Russ­ian at­tack on its neigh­bour. But the Pol­ish gov­ern­ment hopes that worst-case sce­nario can be avert­ed.

Sim­i­lar prepa­ra­tions are be­ing made across the re­gion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in na­tions that bor­der Ukraine.

Poland, which has wel­comed large num­bers of Ukrain­ian eco­nom­ic mi­grants in re­cent years, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter Rus­sia’s in­cur­sions in­to Ukraine in 2014, has been mak­ing plans for weeks to ac­cept refugees if it comes to that, said Marcin Przy­dacz, a deputy for­eign min­is­ter.

FILE - Ukrainian new President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holds a mace, the Ukrainian symbol of power, during his inauguration ceremony in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, May 20, 2019. Ukrainian television star Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been sworn in as president and immediately disbanded the Ukrainian parliament. That was one of his campaign promises, for Zelenskiy had branded the body as a group only interested in self-enrichment. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

WHAT’S WITH UKRAINE’S NA­TO AM­BI­TIONS?

Ukraine’s am­bas­sador to Britain has clar­i­fied com­ments ap­pear­ing to sug­gest that his coun­try could con­sid­er drop­ping its am­bi­tion to join NA­TO to avoid war with Rus­sia.

Vadym Prys­taiko told BBC ra­dio on Sun­day that “we might” drop the am­bi­tion, which is en­shrined in Ukraine’s con­sti­tu­tion, be­cause Ukraine was be­ing “black­mailed.”

“What I’m say­ing here is that we are flex­i­ble, try­ing to find the best way out,” the am­bas­sador said. “If we have to go through some se­ri­ous con­ces­sions, that’s some­thing we might do.”

On Mon­day, Prys­taiko said there had been a mis­un­der­stand­ing. He said that “to avoid war we are ready for many con­ces­sions.”

“But it has noth­ing to do with NA­TO, which is en­shrined in the con­sti­tu­tion,” he said.

HOW IS UKRAINE’S PRES­I­DENT FAR­ING?

Ze­len­skyy won a land­slide vic­to­ry in 2019. As a po­lit­i­cal novice mak­ing an un­like­ly bid for the job, he had vowed to reach out to Rus­sia-backed rebels in the east who were fight­ing Ukrain­ian forces and make strides to­ward re­solv­ing the con­flict.

But Ze­len­skyy is watch­ing his once-enor­mous sup­port dis­solve as Ukraine faces fears of a Russ­ian in­va­sion that could not on­ly take the rebel re­gions but pos­si­bly the rest of the coun­try.

To make mat­ters worse, the in­cum­bent whom Ze­len­skyy de­feat­ed in 2019 has bold­ly re­turned to the coun­try to face charges of trea­son and stir up op­po­si­tion to him. An­a­lysts sug­gest that Moscow is seek­ing to bol­ster sup­port among pro-Rus­sia politi­cians in Ukraine and that the build-up of Russ­ian forces near Ukraine’s bor­der is aimed part­ly at desta­bi­liz­ing the coun­try’s pol­i­tics.

——

Yuras Kar­manau in Kyiv, Ukraine; Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow; Jill Law­less in Lon­don; Vanes­sa Gera in War­saw, Poland; and Jan M. Olsen in Copen­hagen, Den­mark; con­tributed to this re­port.