President Putin highlights the energy sector as a key area of cooperation with Germany, citing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between the two countries, which is ready but not yet operating.

He says this is a "purely commercial project" with no politics involved - and that Russia is happy to continue supplying gas through Ukraine if there is demand for this, adding that it makes economic sense.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are currently giving a press conference after their meeting in Moscow.

Putin begins by saying Germany is a "key partner of Russia" and he would like to strengthen their relationship.

Image source, EPA

Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has dismissed a report that the country stopped the US selling the Iron Dome missile defence system to Ukraine.

Ukraine's government expressed an interest in purchasing Iron Dome, external after last year's conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, when batteries were said to have intercepted 90% of the rockets that crossed into Israeli territory and were headed for populated areas.

The system was developed jointly by Israel and the US, and an agreement doesn't allow for sales to third parties without mutual consent.

The Ynet news website reports, external that Israeli officials informed their US counterparts that they couldn't agree to a request to sell Iron Dome to Ukraine because of the risk of confrontation with Russia, which has forces deployed in neighbouring Syria.

However, Bennett’s spokesperson has told the BBC that they were "not familiar with any such request".

Ilya Barabanov and Svyatoslav Khomenko
BBC Russian, Vovchansk, Ukraine

In the town of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, just 10km (six miles) from the Russian border, there are no signs of preparation for war.

"We have very little money, very few jobs but no war either," a woman selling flat bread in the local market tells us.

Before 2014 there was a lot of cross-border trade. But since the conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted and relations between Ukraine and Russia strained, much of it stopped.

Many in this town of 20,000 were hit.

Vovchansk native Mykola tells us that, initially, people refused to believe that Russia was backing separatists in eastern Ukraine, a claim Moscow rejects.

"But later, many young men from here were conscripted into the army and served in the Donbas area, so now they know better," he says, adding that the mood in the town is very patriotic.

"Yes, we heard about a threat of invasion - from the media and politicians. But we don't think it's going to happen. In any case ordinary people don't have anywhere to run."

"People here have survived World War Two and Nazi occupation. They will keep going somehow," he says.

The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the UK's embassy in Ukraine's capital Kyiv will remain open, as tensions between Ukraine and Russia remain.

He says the decision will be kept under review.

Tough sanctions targeting Russian banks and companies are "ready to go" if Moscow invades Ukraine, Boris Johnson says.

The prime minister tells reporters he wants to "unpeel the facade of Russian ownership of companies".

Challenged over whether the UK government has done enough to stop the flow of dirty Russian money through London, Johnson says he doesn't think that's a fair criticism.

"We've been out in the lead in tackling global corruption," he says, adding that the UK now wants to strengthen measures against ill-gotten Russian money.

He also says the UK will be keeping its embassy operating in the capital, Kyiv, to show its continued support for Ukraine. The US has relocated its embassy to the western city of Lviv.

Johnson says risks remain so the decision will be kept "under constant review" but he adds that the UK wants to keep its embassy going "as long as possible".

Asked about US intelligence suggesting a Russian invasion could happen on Wednesday, Boris Johnson says Moscow has "huge preparation ready to go at virtually any moment".

On what President Putin needs to do to reassure Western leaders, the UK prime minister says they need to see a "programme of de-escalation" and the drawing of battalion groups away from the "potential theatre of conflict".

He would also want to see "a sense that things are being scaled back, scaled down" and that negotiation is beginning.

Johnson adds that there is still an "avenue for diplomacy" and if the "positive signs" are correct "let's build on that".

There are clearly "signs of a diplomatic opening" on Ukraine but the intelligence "is still not encouraging", Prime Minister Boris Johnson says.

Speaking after a meeting of the government's emergency Cobra committee, he says there are "mixed signals" coming from Russia at the moment.

Russian field hospitals are being constructed near the Ukrainian border and more battalions are being brought closer to the border which "can only be construed as preparation for an invasion", he adds.

Image source, Reuters

More from Nato's secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, who says a real de-escalation would mean a substantial withdrawal of Russian troops and military equipment from the border areas with Ukraine.

He spoke to reporters ahead of a two-day meeting of the alliance's defence ministers in Brussels. He says they will address the need to further "increase our defensive posture".

Paul Kirby
BBC News Online Europe editor

Image source, Getty Images

Ukrainians have been at war in the east for almost eight years, after Russian-backed rebels seized big areas of two key regions - Luhansk and Donetsk. Back in 2014 the separatists declared those areas as independent, so-called people's republics.

Russia has never recognised them as independent. But now Russia's parliament has voted to appeal to President Vladimir Putin to recognise those two separatist-run areas as "sovereign and independent states".

If he did, that would be the end of any kind of peace process with Ukraine. There are two accords known as the Minsk agreements from 2014 and 2015. They just haven't been implemented yet and one way out of the current crisis would be to make progress on the Minsk deal.

Under those accords the two rebel-run regions would remain part of Ukraine, but they'd keep a special status of autonomy. Russia and Ukraine have very differing views on what that status means.

This vote by MPs isn't binding and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has been careful to point out that no decision had been made.

Russia has already handed out some 720,000 passports to people living in the rebel regions so they're already close to Moscow. But recognising independence would be a dramatic decision ending any hope of reaching peace with Kyiv.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-general, is speaking to reporters in Brussels. "We haven't seen any de-escalation so far" by Russia on the borders with Ukraine, he says.

But, he adds, "signs" coming from Moscow about diplomatic efforts give "some reason for cautious optimism".

Caution required after Russian announcementpublished at 12:03 Greenwich Mean Time 15 February 2022

12:03 GMT 15 February 2022

Steve Rosenberg
BBC Moscow correspondent

For weeks there have been regular reports of Russia increasing troop numbers near the border with Ukraine. Now Moscow has announced that - drills over - some units are returning to base.

A sign of de-escalation? Possibly.

But caution is required.

The number of troops packing up and moving back is unclear.

Moscow, of course, has insisted all along it has no plans for a military escalation in Ukraine. Russian authorities have dismissed claims by Western governments that a Russian invasion is imminent.

Today, President Putin’s spokesman said the Kremlin leader had mocked such assertions.

"Sometimes [Putin] even jokes about it," Dmitry Peskov told journalists. "He asks us to check whether they [in the West] have published the exact time that war will start."

Despite reports of Russia withdrawing some troops from the Ukrainian border, Paul Niland, who is originally from Dublin but has been living in Ukraine for 19 years, says Kyiv feels the same as yesterday.

"The bulk of those forces remain in place and they form the majority of the armed threat against Ukraine that still exists today," he tells the BBC. "We have adjusted to it because we've been living with war for eight years already."

There has been conflict in Ukraine since 2014, when Russia annexed the southern Crimean peninsula and backed separatists who captured large swathes of eastern Ukraine.

Paul, who runs a suicide prevention support line in Ukraine, describes the mood in the capital as calm.

"We're aware of what potentially could happen but at the same time we still have to take the kids to school, we still have to go shopping, we still have to come to our places of work," he says.

The Republic of Ireland is among the countries urging its citizens to leave Ukraine. But Paul says he's staying put.

"This is my home - I’m not going anywhere," he adds.

Russia says the withdrawal of some forces from Ukraine's borders was planned and stresses it will continue to move troops around its territory as it sees fit.

"We have always said that after the exercises are over... troops would return to their permanent bases. There's nothing new here. This is a usual process," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells reporters.

He accuses the US of fueling the crisis by warning repeatedly of an impending invasion, to the point where Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had made jokes about it.

"He asked [us] to find out if the exact time, to the hour, of the start of the war had been published," he says. "It's impossible to be understanding of this manic information madness."

We still don't know exactly how many troops are being pulled out. There are about 130,000 Russian troops on Ukraine's borders, including some in neighbouring Belarus.

Image source, PA Media

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss have arrived at Downing Street for a Cobra meeting on the Ukraine crisis.

Boris Johnson will chair the meeting of this emergency committee to consider the latest developments as hopes rise that diplomacy may still avert war.

Image source, PA Media

Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have begun in Moscow.

It's the latest meeting in weeks of diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions over Ukraine.

During opening remarks, Putin says: "Unfortunately, we will devote a significant portion of our time to issues related to the situation in Europe and to security."

Paul Adams
BBC diplomatic correspondent, Kyiv

Some of these Russian troop movements relate to what's been going on near the eastern border of Ukraine.

But exercises in Belarus, to the north of Ukraine, are due to go on for another five days and there is no indication anything has changed there.

Western officials said yesterday that they had seen Russian troops moving closer to the border with Ukraine, within Belarus.

So that remains an area of great concern. But clearly there will be a lot of interest in any sign of movement on any of these fronts.

People will want to know what's moving and where they are going.

Image source, Getty Images

It's been a busy morning so if you're just joining us, here's a quick summary of the main developments so far today:

• Ukraine says it will believe Russia is withdrawing when it sees this happening, as it called for Moscow to pull back all of its remaining forces from their shared border
• The UK's foreign secretary has also said Russia must remove all its troops from the Ukrainian border to prove it has no plans to invade. The government's emergency Cobra committee is meeting this morning to discuss the UK's response to the ongoing crisis
• It comes after Russia announced some of its troops on the border were returning to their bases - although large-scale drills are continuing and it's unclear how many units are being withdrawn
• The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany would not become operational if Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU's top diplomat says
• Meanwhile diplomatic efforts continue, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin

Russia's defence ministry has published official footage that it says shows a number of its tanks and armoured vehicles leaving the area near the Ukrainian border.

Josh Martin
BBC News

Oil prices came off seven-year highs and are down nearly 2.5% this morning to $94.10 a barrel, after Russia said some of its troops at the Ukraine border would return to base.

The US benchmark for crude oil, WTI, fell 2.7% to $92.88 a barrel on signs that geopolitical tensions were easing.

London Stock Exchange indices also took the news well, with the FTSE 100 up 0.7% to 7,584 and the FTSE 250 also up 0.8% to 21,790.

"There are no prizes for guessing the driving force behind this bout of volatility," says Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM. "The Russia-Ukraine crisis has put the energy market on high alert for possible disruptions of Russian energy supplies".

The price of gold - seen as a safe haven asset in volatile times - fell 0.5% to $1,860 per ounce.