US President Joe Biden has ended his high-stakes telephone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the crisis in Ukraine.

The call began at 11.04am ET and lasted an little over an hour, the AFP news agency reported citing the White House.

The conversation between the two heads of state took place hours after the US ordered its embassy staff to evacuate and moved some of its troops out of Ukraine, amid growing fears that an invasion could take place any time.

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Russia has allegedly imposed a sea blockade around Ukraine, blocking off sea-based access to the country. Satellite images taken over the past week have also shown new deployment of a large number of Russian forces in western Russia, Belarus, and Crimea, all within striking distance of Ukraine.

While the US says that Russia, which has reportedly amassed more than 100,000 troops around Ukraine, is poised to invade its neighbour, Moscow has accused both the US and its NATO allies of spreading a disinformation campaign.

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“At the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, the global information space faced a media campaign unprecedented in its scale and sophistication, the purpose of which is to convince the world community that the Russian Federation is preparing an invasion of the territory of Ukraine,” said the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement released on its website.

Russia has also attempted diplomacy, and President Putin has engaged several Western European leaders in a bid to try and diffuse the situation, but no breakthrough has been reached thus far.

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With tensions rising and the risk of war looming large, the phone call between Biden and Putin is could be pivotal to whatever comes next.

The two leaders had last spoken via the telephone in December last year, while the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders took place in Geneva in June 2021.