Russia has accused Washington and NATO of escalating tensions through "information hysteria" over deployment of troops in Ukraine.
"As for specific actions, we see statements by the North Atlantic Alliance about reinforcement, pulling forces and resources to the eastern flank. All this leads to the fact that tensions are growing," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"This is not happening because of what we, Russia, are doing. This is all happening because of what NATO and the U.S. are doing and due to the information they are spreading."
He said the West was showing "hysteria" and putting out information "laced with lies".
It comes after the US-led military organisation said that it is beefing up its "deterrence" presence in the Baltic Sea area.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO will "take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies."
Comment: As it is, NATO isn't 'defending' against anything, these aggressive moves have been in the making since the US coup in 2014, it's just that, now, particularly since the West has clearly escalated its belligerence, that Russia is being forced to respond.
He said: "We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence."
Peskov said Monday that Ukraine was preparing an offensive in the east of the country where Kyiv troops have been fighting pro-Russia separatists since 2014.
"The Ukrainian authorities are concentrating a huge amount of forces and means on the border with the self-proclaimed republics," he said.
"The nature of this concentration speaks of preparations for an offensive," he said, adding the risk of such an operation now "is very high, higher than before."
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday warned Russia it risked "a new Chechnya" if it invaded Ukraine, that would cost lives and trigger tough economic sanctions.
"Invading Ukraine, from a Russian perspective, is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business," he said. "It's very important that people in Russia understand this could be a new Chechnya".
"We are showing unprecedented unity about the situation in Ukraine, with the strong coordination with the U.S.," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who is chairing their meeting, told reporters in Brussels.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it considered the move to send home US diplomats' families as "premature and a manifestation of excessive caution."
"In fact, there have been no cardinal changes in the security situation recently: the threat of new waves of Russian aggression has remained constant since 2014 and the buildup of Russian troops near the state border began in April last year," it said.
Comment: This echoes the admission from a Ukrainian parliamentarian, aligned with PM Zelensky, who just 5 days ago said that the risk of a Russian invasion was no more than last year. And so it's fairly clear just which side is instigating this current escalation.
Russia denies planning to invade Ukraine but has used its build-up of an estimated 100,000 troops near the border to force the West to negotiate over a range of demands to redraw the security map of Europe.
Comment: It's not exactly a 'redrawing', since a number of Russia's demands refer to an agreement dating back decades that the US just failed to uphold:
Dozens of documents analyzed by George Washington University National Security Archives researchers Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton show that many Western leaders were rejecting the idea of the "Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991" and that Russian "complaints" about its subsequent expansions were "founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels."
It wants NATO to scrap a promise to let Ukraine join one day and to pull back troops and weapons from former Communist countries in eastern Europe that joined it after the Cold War.
Washington says those demands are non-starters but it is ready to discuss other ideas on arms control, missile deployments, and confidence-building measures.
Ukrainian politicians gratefully accept arms and demand even more from everyone (remember the ongoing scandal with Germany), but they do not want to support the powerful information campaign promoted by the United States and allies.
In recent days, the authorities of the "square" have been marked by conflicting statements. At the same time, they thank Western masters for stepping up arms supplies and refute their own statements about Russia preparing for an offensive.
Following the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov made a similar rebuttal.
Aired on ICTV, he assured that intelligence claims that Russia has not created a single shock formation, which means there is no threat of attack in the coming days.
“I repeat once again that today the fact that we observe based on our intelligence data, the fact that we observe the intelligence of our partner countries, is roughly similar to the situation in the spring of last year.
Not a single strike force was created, "Reznikov said.
He admitted the possibility of "implementation" of such a scenario in the future, but "today such a threat does not exist".
“Therefore I ask you not to sow panic, take it slow. The war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine was unleashed in 2014, "urged the head of the Ukrainian defense department.
It should be noted that on the eve of Washington's panic actions, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry did not approve, Kiev reacted nervously to calls from the US State Department.