Russia-Ukraine updates: US to ban Russian carriers from its airspace

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a national TV address shortly. This comes after Putin said he would decide today whether to recognize Russia-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, in response to Putin’s possibly recognizing the separatist regions, he has convened his national security council and has held “urgent consultations” with the presidents of France and Germany.

France and Germany are the guarantors of the Minsk agreement and the Normandy Format, which all sides agree Russia will exit if it recognizes the separatist regions.

-ABC News' Patrick Reevell

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a national security council meeting that he will make a decision today whether to recognize the Russian-controlled separatist regions in Ukraine as independent.

This came after Putin called an unplanned meeting of his national security council and, in an unusual move, broadcast the meeting live on state TV. The security council unanimously advised Putin he should recognize the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, the two unrecognized state-lets in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. That would open a path to Russia annexing them, as it did Crimea in 2014.

Putin and some top officials at the meeting questioned the usefulness of holding a summit with President Joe Biden.

Nikolay Patrushev, the head of the national security council, told Putin he thought the proposed summit wouldn't be necessary if it was for the U.S. to repeat its positions.

"We probably don’t need just conversations, we need to achieve concrete goals,” Patrushev said, accusing the U.S. of having a "hidden goal” to destroy Russia.

Patrushev said unless the U.S. could say it can force Ukraine to fulfill the Minsk agreements in 2 to 3 days there was no point in a summit.

-ABC News' Patrick Reevell

President Joe Biden is meeting Monday with his national security team, the White House confirmed.

Seen arriving at the White House shortly after 10 a.m. were: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and CIA director William Burns.

-ABC News' Mary Bruce

Russia has claimed to have destroyed two Ukrainian armored vehicles and killed five Ukrainians it claimed crossed into Russian territory, in unverified reports as Russia appears to be intensifying efforts to build a pretext to attack Ukraine. 

Russia’s military and its FSB intelligence service claimed a Ukrainian “sabotage and reconnaissance group” was detected Monday morning near a village close to the border in the Rostov region that neighbors the two Russian-controlled separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. 

Ukraine has denied the Russian claim and it comes amid a barrage of false reports and staged videos from Russia and the separatists of supposed Ukrainian attacks. In the past three days, Russia has also made dubious claims of shells falling on Russian territory as Russia builds a pretext for a possible attack on Ukraine, under the guise of coming to the aid of the separatists. 

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytryo Kuleba publicly denied the Russian claims, on Twitter calling Russia a “fake-producing factory.” 

-ABC News' Patrick Reevell