KYIV, Dec 2 - Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin are due to hold talks “in the near future” after their top diplomats made no apparent progress in Stockholm towards defusing a standoff over Ukraine, amid fears of a Russian invasion, The Guardian reported Thursday.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, opted not to make a joint appearance after trading threats during a 40-minute meeting whose short duration indicated there was little chance of a breakthrough.

“We had a very direct, very candid, non-polemical exchange of views,” Blinken said afterwards. “It was serious; it was sober. I believe that the foreign minister will take the conversation back to President Putin. I’m going to do the same, of course, with President Biden. And I think it’s likely the presidents will speak directly in the near future.”

The US has threatened to deploy “high-impact economic measures” if a Russian buildup of an estimated 100,000 troops leads to a larger conflict with Ukraine. Moscow has said that it feels threatened by Nato’s close relationship with Kyiv.

In a bellicose statement following the talks, Russia’s foreign ministry threatened to take “retaliatory measures” if its interests were ignored. “Ignoring Russia’s legitimate concerns, Ukraine’s involvement in US geopolitical games amid the deployment of Nato forces near our borders, will have the most serious consequences, and will force Moscow to take retaliatory measures to level the military and strategic balance,” the ministry wrote.

Russia is seeking another presidential summit with the US in which Putin has said he will demand guarantees that Nato will limit its support of Ukraine, a non-member that is allied with the security bloc. Jens Stoltenberg, the head of Nato, has said that Russia has no veto on Ukraine joining the military alliance.

US punitive measures in the event of Russian military action could target Russia’s new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, access to the Swift bank messaging system, or threaten other sectoral sanctions against the Russian economy.

Russia said separately on Thursday that it had detained three Ukrainian spies, including one who had allegedly been planning an attack with explosives. The FSB domestic intelligence agency did not say where or when it had detained the Ukrainians. It said two of the alleged spies – a father and son – were agents of Ukraine’s SBU security service who had “travelled to Russia to collect information and take photographs and videos of strategically important enterprises and objects of transport infrastructure”. The SBU said the accusation was “fake” and part of a “hybrid war” effort. (om/ez)