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The Kremlin warned on Thursday that there was “not much cause for optimism” that the West would satisfy Russia’s demands in the showdown over Ukraine, but said that President Vladimir V. Putin would take his time to study the written responses that the United States and NATO submitted a day earlier before deciding how to proceed.

“All these papers are with the president,” Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters. “There will of course be some time needed to analyze them — we won’t rush to any conclusions.”

Mr. Peskov did not discuss the content of the responses, which the United States has requested be kept confidential. But he said that based on public remarks about them by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, there was little likelihood that the West would offer concessions on Russia’s central demands.

“There is not much cause for optimism,” Mr. Peskov said, replying to a question over whether Russia would be satisfied with the Western responses. “But I would continue to refrain from making any conceptual evaluations.”

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, sounded a similarly pessimistic note, saying in comments published on his ministry’s website that the American document contained “no positive reaction” to Russia’s main demands.

The Russian officials’ comments came against the backdrop of Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine, and hours after a shooting at a Ukrainian missile factory overnight that served as a reminder of the fragile military situation on the ground. There was no immediate evidence that the shooting was related to the building military tensions in the region.

As Western fears grew over a possible Russian attack against Ukraine, Moscow published a list of demands last month that would involve NATO withdrawing troops from Eastern Europe and pledging never to allow Ukraine to join. Russia requested a response in writing, which the United States and NATO submitted on Wednesday.

Mr. Lavrov said that while the U.S. response included initiatives that could serve as “the beginning of a serious conversation,” there was no sign of progress on Russia’s priority of rolling back the NATO presence in Eastern Europe. He said that consultations among Russian government officials would be followed by a briefing to Mr. Putin, who “will decide on our next steps.”

Mr. Putin, who has been silent in public on the Ukraine crisis since December, visited a cemetery in St. Petersburg on Thursday to mark the 78th anniversary of the end of the Nazis’ siege of Leningrad, in which Mr. Putin’s brother died as a child. State television aired brief footage of Mr. Putin, in a black overcoat, placing flowers onto a wreath in the snow. Mr. Peskov said the president planned no other public events.

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Blinken Calls U.S. Letter to Russia a ‘Diplomatic Path Forward’

The United States delivered a written response to Russia’s demands in Eastern Europe, which included its concerns over escalating military tensions in the region.

Russia had previously outlined its concerns and proposals in writing. And last week, I told Foreign Minister Lavrov the United States would do the same. Today, Ambassador Sullivan delivered our written response in Moscow. All told, it sets out a serious diplomatic path forward, should Russia choose it. The document we’ve delivered includes concerns of the United States and our allies and partners about Russia’s actions that undermine security, a principled and pragmatic evaluation of the concerns that Russia has raised, and our own proposals for areas where we may be able to find common ground. We make clear that there are core principles that we are committed to uphold and defend, including Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the right of states to choose their own security arrangements and alliances. We’re not releasing the document publicly, because we think that diplomacy has the best chance to succeed if we provide space for confidential talks. We hope and expect that Russia will have the same view, and will take our proposal seriously.

The United States says more than 100,000 Russian troops are massed near Ukraine’s border, prepared to attack at any time. Russia denies it has plans to invade Ukraine, but months of threatening messaging from the Kremlin have raised concerns that Mr. Putin is prepared to use military means to reverse the former Soviet republic’s pro-Western turn.

For now, officials on all sides say there is still a chance for diplomacy to resolve the crisis.

But Russia has made it clear that the current military standoff is about more than Ukraine. The Kremlin is seeking to rewrite Europe’s post-Cold War order to give Russia a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe — something that Mr. Putin says is critical to Russia’s long-term security. Mr. Putin has threatened unspecified “military technical” measures if the West does not accede to Russia’s demands.

Moscow continued to play coy about what those measures could be. Mr. Putin recently held calls with the leaders of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, stoking speculation that Russia could deploy missiles to Latin America that would bolster its ability to threaten the U.S. mainland.

But Dmitri A. Medvedev, the vice chairman of Mr. Putin’s security council, played down that speculation in a televised interview broadcast on Thursday that was recorded before the United States submitted its written responses.

“To run ahead and say we want a base there or that we agreed on something would be absolutely wrong,” Mr. Medvedev said. “That would be provoking tensions in the world.”

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — A national guard soldier in Ukraine opened fire on Thursday at a missile and rocket factory in the eastern part of the country, killing five people, the police said.

While details of the shooting were scarce and there was no immediate sign that it was related to the military buildup in the region, it underscored the dangers of the moment as fears of a Russian attack on Ukraine grow by the day.

The gunman fled the scene, leading to a sprawling manhunt that lasted for hours before a suspect was taken into custody, according to the police. The police identified the man as Artemiy Ryabchuk and said he was born in 2001, but released few other details about him.

Even as the investigation proceeded, the episode was caught in the murkiness of a broader geopolitical struggle between the West and Russia, in which the Kremlin is trying to reduce the Western presence in a region that it considers within its sphere of influence. U.S. officials have warned that Russia could employ disinformation, paramilitary attacks and sabotage.

This month, the United States said, Russia had dispatched intelligence agents and saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to stage a provocation, with the region’s industrial infrastructure seen as a potential target.

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The site of the shooting early on Thursday morning — commonly known as Yuzhmash, an aerospace and rocket factory that American officials have long viewed as posing a risk of weapons proliferation — is precisely the kind of strategic location that Western officials are watching intensely.

They worry that Russia might point to any sign of instability inside Ukraine as a pretext for a military intervention. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said this month that the United States believed Russia was potentially seeking to manufacture events that it could cite as a reason to invade, “including through sabotage.”

The shooting took place in Dnipro, one of the largest cities in the country and more than 100 miles from the frontline of the war in eastern Ukraine, where the Ukrainian military has been fighting Russian-backed separatists since 2014.

Given that the factory was once a production site for intercontinental ballistic missiles, it was tightly guarded even before the latest tensions.

The police said that shortly before 4 a.m., as soldiers were collecting their weapons in a guard house, the gunman opened fire. There were 22 people in the room at the time, the authorities said.

Four of those killed were fellow soldiers. An employee of the factory was also killed, the police said. Five other people were wounded.

A statement from Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, said that the soldier had turned his weapon on fellow service members who were guarding the plant, and then fled.

The statement said the soldier had fired “for undetermined reasons.”

Later, Denys Monastyrsky, Ukraine’s interior minister, wrote in a post on Facebook that the police were examining the suspect’s medical records since the time of his enlistment, suggesting that the investigation would include the possibility of a psychological disorder.

The attack came only hours after the United States and NATO provided written responses to Russian demands over Western nations’ presence in former Soviet states, saying some security issues could be discussed while others were nonnegotiable.

A rocket factory in eastern Ukraine where five people were killed by a national guard soldier before dawn on Thursday has long been a source of concern for Western officials worried about the proliferation of missile technology to rogue states.

The facility was once one of the Soviet Union’s largest missile factories, and after the Cold War, it was one of the first locations where the United States directed its attention.

In December 1993, after years of often difficult negotiations, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons. A few months later, teams of Western scientists were dispatched to the facility to work with the people there to destroy the nuclear weapons that had once been pointed at the United States.

But in the years that followed, the factory, often known by its shortened name Yuzhmash, has been a frequent source of concern.

Its technical libraries and aging cadre of poorly paid rocket scientists led to worries that the organization’s legacy designs for rocket engines developed in the Soviet period could be passed along to rogue states like North Korea.

The company that now operates the factory makes civilian rockets for satellite launches and has cooperated with NASA on designs for resupply missions to the International Space Station.

Its rocket models include the Anteres, the Cyclone and the Zenit, but it has struggled to remain relevant and profitable in the international space launch industry.

For Russia, the factory’s separation during the Soviet breakup from what had been an integrated space and military industry was seen as emblematic of the economic and scientific disruptions caused by Ukraine’s emergence as an independent country.

But as tensions have mounted in recent months, it has again become a focus for Western officials concerned that it could be the kind of place where Russia might try to stage an incident that would provide a pretext for military intervention.

This month, the White House accused Moscow of sending saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to stage such an incident. The Biden administration did not release details of the evidence it had collected, but Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that the operatives were trained in urban warfare and explosives.

“Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for invasion,” Ms. Psaki said, “including through sabotage activities and information operations, by accusing Ukraine of preparing an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.”

China’s foreign minister called on Thursday for a peaceful resolution to the political crisis over Ukraine but chided the United States and NATO, saying that Russia’s “reasonable security concerns should be taken seriously.”

The remarks by the minister, Wang Yi, were Beijing’s most explicit so far in support of Russia’s position in the confrontation and reflected the deepening ties between the countries, especially in opposition to the United States on security matters.

“Regional security cannot be guaranteed by strengthening or even expanding military blocs,” Mr. Wang said, according to a Foreign Ministry statement released after he spoke by telephone with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.

Mr. Wang’s remarks echoed the messaging of President Vladimir V. Putin, who has warned that NATO’s support for Ukraine threatened Russia’s security.

Since Mr. Putin ordered a huge buildup of Russian forces near Ukraine’s borders, China has remained relatively muted about the crisis, mainly calling for a negotiated settlement.

The State Department released its own statement about the call, saying that Mr. Blinken “underscored the global security and economic risks posed by further Russian aggression against Ukraine and conveyed that de-escalation and diplomacy are the responsible way forward.”

The call also made clear that tensions between the United States and China had not eased since a “virtual summit” in November between President Biden and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. That meeting had sought to build what Mr. Biden called “guardrails” to keep political differences from spiraling into open conflict.

In the Chinese statement on Thursday, Mr. Wang said that the tone of American policy had not changed substantially since the meeting. He cited American support for Taiwan, the island democracy that China claims, and accused the United States of interfering with the Winter Olympics that begin next week in Beijing. Mr. Wang did not elaborate, but the White House has announced that no senior government officials would attend.

“The United States continues to make mistakes in words and deeds in relation to China,” he told Mr. Blinken, according to the statement.

As President Biden tries to forge a united allied response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, unity on the home front is strained by a Republican Party torn between traditional hawks in the leadership and a wing still loyal to Donald J. Trump’s isolationist instincts and pro-Russian sentiment.

Republican leaders, by and large, have struck an aggressive posture, encouraging Mr. Biden to get tougher on Russia through immediate sanctions on Russian energy exports and more lethal aid to Ukraine’s military. But that message has been undermined by the party’s far right, which has questioned why the United States would side with Ukraine at all, and has obliquely suggested with no evidence that the president was bolstering his son Hunter Biden’s business interests.

Driven by a steady diet of pro-Russian or anti-interventionist messaging from the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Republican right has become increasingly vocal in undercutting not only U.S. foreign policy, but also the positions of the party’s leaders.

The Republican representatives Matt Rosendale of Montana, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia; the Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance; and Donald Trump Jr. have weighed in to oppose confronting Russia or to suggest nefarious intentions on Mr. Biden’s part. Mr. Trump told the conservative podcast host Lou Dobbs that Mr. Biden’s reported plan to send as many as 50,000 troops to bolster Europe’s defenses was “crazy.”

Representative Michael R. Turner of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, went on Fox News to confront Mr. Carlson.

“Why would we take Ukraine’s side and not Russia’s side?” Mr. Carlson pushed. “It’s a sincere question.”

Mr. Turner responded: “Ukraine is a democracy. Russia is an authoritarian regime that is seeking to impose its will upon a validly elected democracy in Ukraine, and we’re on the side of democracy.”

PARIS — Bringing together senior Russian and Ukrainian officials, France and Germany tried on Wednesday to coax the countries into easing tensions between them, before planned talks on Friday between the French and Russian presidents.

With Russian forces massed near the borders of Ukraine, senior diplomats at the gathering known as the Normandy Format — a diplomatic grouping of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine that has met occasionally since 2014 — discussed how to lower the temperature in their standoff.

After more than eight hours of talks in Paris, the group released a statement, through the French presidency, reaffirming unconditional support for the 2015 cease-fire, updated in 2020, between Russia-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine and the government in Kyiv.

The statement made no direct mention of worries about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, as the discussions focused instead on the cease-fire agreement, known as the Minsk Accord, which the Normandy group helped broker. The diplomats will meet again in Berlin in two weeks, it said.

A senior official in the French presidency said the discussions were “difficult” but somewhat encouraging. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in keeping with French government practice, said the meeting was a way to “test the willingness of the Russians to negotiate.”

“Our conclusion is that we got the sign of re-engagement that we were looking for,” the official said.

For President Emmanuel Macron of France, the meeting offered an opportunity to showcase Europeans trying to solve Europe’s problems. He has made what he calls “European strategic autonomy” — in other words, greater independence from the United States — a central theme of his presidency, while positioning himself as Europe’s de facto leader.

The meeting on Wednesday brought together the Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff, Dmitri Kozak, and the Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak. They were joined by the top diplomatic advisers to Mr. Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany.

Russia’s core demand is that Ukraine never become a member of NATO. In 2008, NATO leaders declared that Ukraine and Georgia, former Soviet republics, “will become members of NATO.”

The timing for such membership was left open, and there has been little or no progress toward it in the almost 14 years since, but the statement has remained a thorn in Russia’s side. For Mr. Putin, it was part of a series of humiliating faits accomplis presented to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as NATO has expanded east and lands that had been under Moscow’s thumb moved into the Western sphere. Now the Russian leader seems determined to impose his own outcomes on the ground.

Separate talks on Ukraine between the United States and Russia, held mainly in Geneva in recent months, have left France uneasy. “President Biden and Putin in Geneva discussing Europe eclipses Macron,” said Jacques Rupnik, a prominent political scientist. “So this meeting today was important for him on the symbolic level.”

With a presidential election looming in April, the longtime German Chancellor Angela Merkel now gone, and France holding the rotating presidency of the European Union for the first time since 2008, Mr. Macron is eager to demonstrate decisive European leadership. It is not clear, however, that the rest of Europe is prepared to follow him.

The Normandy group formed after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. It offered a context for talks that exclude the United States, without getting bogged down in U.S.-Russia disputes. Its name stems from the date of the group’s creation, June 6, 2014, the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, during World War II.

MOSCOW — Amid all the fear and guesswork over the possibility that President Vladimir V. Putin could soon order an attack on Ukraine, one man has been conspicuously silent: Mr. Putin.

In November and December, Mr. Putin spoke out about Ukraine repeatedly, pairing Russia’s ominous military buildup with threatening messaging. At an end-of-the-year news conference on Dec. 23, Mr. Putin warned that Russia needed “guarantees” that Ukraine would never join the NATO alliance, “right away, right now.”

That news conference, more than a month ago, was the last time that Mr. Putin spoke out about the current crisis over Ukraine, or about Russia’s demands that NATO roll back its presence in Eastern Europe. Ever since — even as Russian and American diplomats sparred in Geneva, Ukraine received Western weapons deliveries and President Biden predicted Mr. Putin would mount an invasion — Mr. Putin has said nothing about the matter in public.

On Wednesday, Mr. Putin held a video conference with Italian executives about doing business in Russia. In his televised opening remarks, Mr. Putin discussed Moscow’s candidacy to host the Expo 2030 world’s fair and spoke at length about green-energy investment opportunities. He said nothing about the war fears and sanctions threats that have the Russian economy hanging in the balance.

“We’re in a suspended state,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Putin is laying low.”

As with all things when it comes to Mr. Putin’s foreign policy, the president’s remarkable silence in a high-stakes drama that revolves around him appeared designed, in part, to keep the West guessing at his intentions. It stood in contrast to the relentless speculation in Washington, where Mr. Biden has been asked repeatedly to render judgment on the likelihood of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. And it underscored the Kremlin’s discipline in controlling its message, with officials insisting that they would not make any decisions until the United States submitted a written response to Russia’s demands to halt the expansion of NATO.

“Let’s first get the response,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said this week when asked about Russia’s stance. “Then the position will be formulated based on the conceptual guidelines provided by the head of state.”