US, Russia defense chiefs hold talks as tensions amid escalating over Crimea attack

US and Russian defense chiefs spoke by telephone on Tuesday in rare communication between the two powers and with tensions rising after Moscow blamed Washington for a deadly Ukraine attack over the weekend on the Russian-annexed Crimea.

The two sides gave widely divergent accounts of the conversation - the first one between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Russia's new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, who replaced Sergei Shoigu in May.

The Pentagon said Austin and Belousov discussed the importance of open lines of communication.

Austin initiated the conversation, and it was the first such call since March 2023, Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder told reporters.

Russia's Defense Ministry, however, said that Belousov warned Austin of the dangers of continued US arms supplies to Ukraine in the 28-month-old war.

"A.R. Belousov pointed to the danger of further escalating the situation through continued supplies of American weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces," the ministry statement said on the Telegram messaging app after the call.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plunged to their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Diplomatic contacts between President Vladimir Putin's government and President Joe Biden's administration are now at "an absolute minimum," Moscow said last week.

Over the weekend, Russia said the United States was directly responsible for a Ukrainian attack on the Crimean peninsula with five US-supplied missiles that killed four people.

The Pentagon said earlier this week that Ukraine makes its own targeting decisions.

Reuters