Moscow, 14 February 2022 (dpa/MIA) - Large-scale Russian military exercises were being held off the southern coast of Ukraine on Monday, with aircraft, helicopters and more than 30 warships gathering in the Black Sea as fears over a possible attack by Moscow grew. Russia says the training is aimed at locating and destroying submarines. Ukraine calls the drills, which are expected to last through Saturday, a provocation that will severely impede navigation in the Black Sea and the adjacent Sea of Azov. The Kremlin has rejected accusations that merchant ships would be impacted by the manoeuvres and said they pose no security threat. Nevertheless, Ukraine has advised airlines to avoid airspace over the area. The naval exercises are overlapping with large-scale military drills under way between Russia and and its close ally Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine. The US says there are 130,000 troops amassed on Russian territory near the border, meaning Russian forces are built up on three sides of Ukraine. The US and its NATO allies charge that Russia is preparing a renewed attack on Ukraine, following the 2014 annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, an accusation that Russia rejects and calls "scaremongering." Top US officials said in recent days that intelligence suggests Russia could be planning to invade Ukraine "at any time," including before the end of the Winter Olympics on February 20. The ruler of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said on Monday that the decision to stage the joint exercises with Russia was made before the current "hysteria" had broken out. On the question of when Russian troops would leave Belarus again, he said: "We will decide that with Vladimir Putin." The West fears that troops will not leave Belarus once the 10-day drills, which started late last week, conclude. According to the Kremlin, Putin is scheduled to talk to Lukashenko sometime this week. Previously, the Kremlin had made statements that Russia troops would be withdrawn. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has advised President Vladimir Putin to continue negotiations with NATO on security guarantees. "There is always a chance," Lavrov said he told Putin. But they can not drag on indefinitely, he said. The top diplomat's advice is a sign that Moscow might be willing, for now, to pursue a diplomatic path to ease tensions. Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) nations said on Monday they are prepared to impose "massive" economic sanctions on Russia should it attack Ukraine. They called the Russian massing of forces on Ukraine's borders "a cause for grave concern" and that should a military invasion proceed as the West fears there will be a rapid impact on Russia. "We are prepared to collectively impose economic and financial sanctions which will have massive and immediate consequences on the Russian economy," it continued. Two days before a meeting of NATO defence ministers, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev sees no military solution to the Ukraine-Russia crisis. "We all hope that a war in Ukraine will be avoided," Radev said on Monday, according to information from the presidential office. The daily negotiations at the highest political level give hope, he said. Radev wants to discuss with his security council this Tuesday the risks of the conflict for the south-eastern EU country, which is also a NATO member. "Bulgaria is part of the efforts to de-escalate, but also part of the efforts to strengthen the eastern flank of the [NATO] alliance," Radev stressed. The state leadership in Sofia is planning to set up a "battalion combat group" under Bulgarian command, in which NATO allies could participate without directly stationing their troops. Unlike Romania and Poland, no US troops have been deployed to Bulgaria so far because of the Ukraine-Russia crisis. Western leaders have been scrambling to defuse the crisis but their conversations with Putin - including US President Joe Biden's on Saturday - have failed to make progress. Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio is the latest Western diplomat to head to Kiev to offer Ukraine support in the defence of its sovereignty and territorial integrity, with plans to visit on Tuesday. In a show of deterrence and solidarity, NATO allies have been sending more forces and equipment into Eastern Europe and putting other troops on standby. The first German troops have arrived in Lithuania to reinforce the Bundeswehr-led NATO battalion there. A contingent of around 100 soldiers arrived at the airport of the city of Kaunas on Monday and set off for the military base in Rukla. There they will become part of the NATO Battlegroup to deter Russia, which has been stationed there since 2017.Germany has provided about half of the 1,200 soldiers so far. Lithuania borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia's ally Belarus. Meanwhile, several countries have begun evacuating diplomatic staff from Ukraine.