Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Moscow of the "severe costs" Russia would pay if it invaded Ukraine, urging his Russian counterpart on Thursday to seek a diplomatic exit from the crisis.

Interfax news agency, quoting Russia's foreign ministry, said Lavrov had told Blinken that Moscow would respond if Ukraine got drawn into any U.S.

Lavrov, speaking to reporters before his talks with Blinken, said Moscow was ready for dialogue with Kyiv.

Ukraine says Russia has amassed more than 90,000 troops near their long shared border, while Moscow accuses Kyiv of pursuing its own military build-up.

Blinken said Moscow and Kyiv should each fulfil their obligations under the Minsk peace process, which was designed to end a war between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces in the east of the former Soviet republic.

Washington was willing to facilitate this, Blinken said, but "if Russia decides to pursue confrontation, there will be serious consequences".

The Kremlin said on Thursday - before the Lavrov-Blinken meeting - that the probability of a new conflict in eastern Ukraine remained high and that Moscow was concerned by "aggressive" rhetoric from Kyiv and an increase in what it called provocative actions along the line of contact between government forces and the pro-Russian separatists.

Putin said this week that Russia was ready with a newly tested hypersonic weapon of its own if the West deployed missiles in Ukraine that could hit Moscow within a few minutes