Putin and Obama Agree Standoff in No One's Interest

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama agreed during a phone call on Friday the current standoff in Ukraine was not in the interest of their countries, the Kremlin said.

"The presidents agreed that the current situation is not in the interests of either country," said a Kremlin statement.

Meanwhile in his first comments on sanctions after the U.S. and EU earlier this week slapped the toughest punitive measures on Russia since the Cold War, Putin characterized them as "counterproductive, causing serious damage to bilateral cooperation and international stability overall."

However, the Kremlin said the two presidents agreed on the urgent need for an "immediate and stable halt to fighting in southeast Ukraine and the start of a political process."

They also agreed that tripartite contact group talks bringing together Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which is monitoring the situation in Ukraine should continue.

Tripartite talks held on Thursday and Friday in the Belarusian capital Minsk reached agreement on freeing 20 prisoners from each side, according to Ukraine's representative cited by Russian news agencies.

Russia's annexation of Crimea and a pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine that Washington accuses Moscow of supporting has led to the severest crisis in relations between Russia and the West in decades.

Meanwhile, the White House said Obama called Putin on Friday to express his "deep concerns about Russia's increased support for the separatists in Ukraine."

Obama also repeated his concern about Moscow's alleged breach of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, under which the U.S. and Russia agreed not to develop medium-range cruise missiles. 

"The president reinforced his preference for a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Ukraine, and the two leaders agreed to keep open their channels of communication," a White House statement said.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby meanwhile said Russia was continuing to reinforce its military presence along the border with Ukraine.

"It continues to be north of 10,000, the numbers, but it fluctuates," Kirby told reporters, adding that troops were "close to the border, within 50 kilometers of the border -- closer than what we saw back in the spring."