The United States said the diplomatic path remained open to end a standoff with Moscow over Ukraine but said the risk of Russian military action was high enough to warrant pulling U.S. embassy staff out of Kyiv.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was speaking after talks on Saturday with Japanese and South Korean counterparts, following Washington's warning that Russia's military, which has more than 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, could invade at any moment.
Moscow, which has repeatedly denied it plans to invade and said it is responding to aggression by NATO allies, has dismissed those warnings as "hysteria".