washington defense secretary lloyd austin said friday the buildup of russian forces along ukraines border has reached the point where president vladimir putin now has a complete range of military options including actions short of a fullscale invasionwhile we dont believe that president putin has made a final decision to use these forces against ukraine he clearly now has the capability austin told a pentagon news conferencein moscow the kremlin said putin told french president emmanuel macron that the west has failed to take russian security concerns into account and russian foreign minister sergey lavrov told a radio interviewer that russia doesnt want war but sees no room for compromise on its demandsaustin said putin could use any portion of his force of an estimated 100000 troops to seize ukrainian cities and significant territories or to carry out coercive acts or provocative political acts like the recognition of breakaway territories inside ukraine he urged putin to deescalate tensions and appeared to warn moscow against what the white house recently said was russias intent to paint ukraine as the aggressor using a falseflag operation to justify an attackwe remain focused on russian disinformation including the potential creation of pretext for further invasion or strikes on donbas said austinthis is straight out of the russian playbook theyre not fooling usaustin spoke alongside army gen mark milley chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in what were their first extensive public comments about the crisis marking a subtle shift in the administrations approach to public communications about the escalating situation while both have consulted regularly with their nato and ukrainian counterparts the public discourse has focused on the diplomatic effortsmilley painted a grim picture of russian military capabilities around ukraine saying there are not only ground troops and naval and air forces but also cyber and electronic warfare capabilities as well as special operations forces he said the buildup is the largest hes seen in recent memory and he urged putin to choose a diplomatic path over conflictif russia chooses to invade ukraine it will not be costfree in terms of casualties and other significant effects milley saidhe was referring to russian costs while also noting that ukraines armed forces are more capable today than in 2014 when russia seized ukraines crimean peninsula and intervened in support of prorussian separatists in the eastern industrial heartlandearlier friday the kremlin said putin told macron that the west has failed to consider russias key conditions of halting further nato expansion stopping the deployment of alliance weapons near russian borders and rolling back its forces from eastern europethe us and nato formally rejected those demands this week although washington outlined areas where discussions are possible offering hope that there could be a way to avoid wardespite that us president joe biden on thursday warned ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy that there is a distinct possibility that russia could take military action against the former soviet state in february russia has repeatedly denied having any such planszelenskyy sought to