Russia says it will strike back if its "legitimate interests" in Ukraine are attacked, raising the stakes in the Cold War-like duel with the US over the former Soviet republic's future.
NATO responded by cautioning against "veiled threats", saying they violated the spirit of an agreement reached in Geneva last week to try to pull the crisis-hit country back from the brink of civil war.
Moscow is insisting that Kiev withdraw forces sent to eastern Ukraine on an "anti-terrorist" mission to dislodge pro-Russian rebels, who have occupied government buildings there.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state-controlled RT television on Wednesday that if Russia or its interests are attacked, "we would certainly respond".
"If our interests, our legitimate interests, the interests of Russians have been attacked directly, like they were in South Ossetia for example, I do not see any other way but to respond in accordance with international law," he said, referring to Russia's armoured invasion of Georgia in 2008.
Both Kiev and Washington believe the current crisis is being deliberately fuelled by Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to restore former Soviet glory.
The Kremlin has an estimated 40,000 Russian troops poised on Ukraine's eastern border, prompting Washington on Wednesday to start deploying 600 US troops to boost NATO's defences in eastern European states bordering Ukraine.
The spiralling violence - while the US and Russia trade accusations of inflaming the situation through proxies in Ukraine - has scuppered a Geneva accord agreed last week between Kiev, Russia and the West that was meant to move Ukraine away from the brink of civil war.
Russia's gas supplies to Ukraine and Europe have become another source of tensions between the sides.
The vice president of Russia's state-owned Gazprom, Alexander Medvedev, at a Paris news conference late on Wednesday said Ukraine's gas debt, which he calculated would be $3.5 billion by the beginning of May, is "intolerable".
Putin has warned in a letter to the EU that Moscow could cut gas supplies in a month's time if Ukraine's bill was not paid in full.
Significantly, that cut-off would come just before a May 25 election Ukraine is scheduled to hold to choose a new president - a poll Biden this week described as "maybe the most important election in Ukrainian history".
The hardening positions and the flurry of threats and counter-threats has many countries concerned, not least ones in the European Union dependent on Russian gas.
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