Russia threatens military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela as diplomacy stalls

Russia has refused to rule out a military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela if talks with the west on European security and Ukraine fail to go its way, while warning the latest discussions with Nato were hitting a dead end.

At the end of a week of diplomacy that appears to have produced no progress, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said US had intelligence Russia was preparing to fabricate claims of an imminent Ukrainian attack on Russian forces as a pretext for invasion.

Rau was addressing the 57 nations of the OSCE, an organisation that includes Russia, Ukraine, the United States and European nations. It was the third time this week Russia had discussed security with western countries.

Russia has mobilised 100,000 troops and placed military hardware along its border with Ukraine, while issuing a series of security demands that Nato has said are impossible to meet, such as removing troops from eastern members of the alliance and a block on any membership application from Kyiv.

In Moscow, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said there could be a complete rupture in US-Russian relations if proposed sanctions targeting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and other top civilian and military leaders were adopted. Senate Democrats have also proposed targeting leading Russian financial institutions if Moscow sends troops into Ukraine.

The EU is also drawing up possible sanctions, although has declined to reveal details.