Russia, US army chiefs hold rare call amid Ukraine escalation

MOSCOW - The Russian and US army chiefs held a rare phone call last week amid escalation in Ukraine, officials from both sides have said.

Direct contact between Moscow and Washington has almost ceased to exist amid

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,

and the Kremlin has said it considers the United States a direct participant in the conflict.

The call, between Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Brown occurred on Nov 27 and was held at the request of the Russian side, both Moscow and Washington said.

“The leaders discussed a number of global and regional security issues to include the ongoing conflict in Ukraine,” Gen Brown’s spokesman told AFP.

It the was the first call between the pair since Gen Brown took over the role in October 2023.

The Russian defence ministry said Gen Gerasimov had informed Gen Brown about Russian military drills in the eastern Mediterranean, announced as Moscow conducts air strikes to support its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad quash

an Islamist-led rebellion.

“This information was given with the goal of preventing possibile incidents in connection with the presence of US and Nato ships near the area of Russian drills,” it said, in a statement on Telegram.

It did not mention Ukraine or any other topic.

Citing a US military spokesperson, the New York Times reported that the pair discussed

Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile.

Gen Brown also expressed US concern over the deployment of North Korean troops to support Russia’s army on the battlefield, CNN reported.

Tensions between Russia and the United States have escalated since Donald Trump won the presidential election in November.

The outgoing Joe Biden adminstration has given Kyiv

the green light to fire US-supplied ATACMS missiles on Russian territory,

while Russia lowered its threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

In response to Kyiv striking Russian border regions with the Western weapons, Russia said it “test fired” a never-before-seen nuclear-capable missile in a strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. AFP