(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration will hold off on making firm commitments during talks with Russia next week aimed at easing tensions over Ukraine, and plans discussions with allies before any agreements, a senior official said.

The U.S. plans to seek areas of concurrence, and is willing to explore reciprocal restrictions on strategic bombers and ground-based exercises, the official said on Saturday. But the U.S. won’t negotiate scaling back troop deployments and military exercises in Eastern Europe, the official said, denying an NBC News report. 

The comments came a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken stepped up the Biden administration’s sharp rhetoric against Russia, accusing Moscow of using military threats, disinformation and targeted killings to build a sphere of influence beyond its borders.

The remarks by Blinken -- and the senior U.S. official on Saturday -- were in keeping with what he and other administration officials have said in recent weeks. The comments offered more signals that the U.S. isn’t going to offer major concessions -- in tone or substance -- when senior American and Russian officials begin talks in Geneva on Monday.

Those discussions will be followed by meetings between NATO members and Russia in Brussels and then a gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe later in the week as Western officials try to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull back the more than 100,000 troops he has massed at Ukraine’s border in recent months.

The U.S. official said the U.S. and Russia may be able to reach an understanding on the placement of an offensive missile system in Ukraine. Putin has raised concern over the prospect of such a system even though Biden has told Putin he isn’t planning on one, the official said.

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