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ROME -- President Barack Obama called on Russia Friday to pull its troops back from the Ukrainian border. Later Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Obama to discuss a diplomatic solution.

In an interview with CBS News, Obama said the world is unified in opposing and condemning what he called Russia's illegal occupation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. That occupation started last month.

Pentagon correspondent David Martin is reporting the Russians are massing another 40,000 to 50,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, with all they need for combat operations. In Friday's interview, Obama sent a message to Russia.

President Barack Obama speaks with Scott Pelley in Rome.

CBS News

And in either case, what we need right now to resolve and de-escalate the situation would be for Russia to move back those troops and to begin negotiations directly with the Ukrainian government, as well as the international community.

SCOTT PELLEY: What is Vladimir Putin after?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If you take him at his word, then --

PELLEY: Can you?

OBAMA: Well, on this I think he's been willing to show a deeply held grievance about what he considers to be the loss of the Soviet Union. ... I think there's a strong sense of Russian nationalism and a sense that somehow the West has taken advantage of Russia in the past, and that he wants to, in some fashion, reverse that or make up for that.

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Obama calls on Russia to pull troops back from Ukraine border

President Obama paid a visit Friday to the desert oasis of wary ally King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, hoping to reassure the aging monarch who is nervously watching Washington's negotiations with Iran and other U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Obama's Marine One helicopter kicked up clouds of sand in his arrival at the king's desert camp outside the capital of Riyadh for a meeting and dinner with Abdullah. The president walked through a row of military guards to an ornate room featuring a massive crystal chandelier and took a seat next to the 89-year-old king, who was breathing with the help of an oxygen tank.

Secretary of State John Kerry sat at Obama's side for the visit that is the president's third official meeting with the king in six years.

Despite its decades-long alliance with the United States, Saudi's royal family has become increasingly anxious in recent years over Obama's nuclear talks with Iran and his tepid involvement in the Syrian civil war. During his evening meetings with the king, Obama's task was to reassure Saudi Arabia that the U.S. is not abandoning Arab interests despite troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, greater energy independence back home and nuclear talks with predominantly Persian Iran.

White House officials and Mideast experts say the Saudi royal family's main concern is Iran. They fear Iran's nuclear program, object to Iran's backing of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria and see the government of Tehran as having designs on oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters aboard Air Force One on the flight to Saudi Arabia that the issues at the heart of Obama's meetings with Abdullah include Gulf security, Middle East peace, Syria, Iran and Egypt.

On Syria, Rhodes said Obama did not plan to make any specific announcements about additional assistance to opposition forces. He said the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have been working together closely to coordinate their assistance to the rebels.

Rhodes said that coordination has helped put the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia "in a stronger place today than it was in the fall when we had some tactical differences about our Syria policy."

"We are in a better place today than we were seven months ago," Rhodes said.

Obama angered Saudi officials by scrapping plans to launch a military strike against Syria, choosing instead to back a plan to strip Syrian President Bashar Assad of his chemical weapons.

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Obama meets with Saudi king to reassure key ally

President Barack Obama is making a fence-mending mission to Saudi Arabia, an important Middle East ally that's grown nervous as the U.S. negotiates with Iran and pulls out troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama left Friday for an overnight trip to Saudi Arabia that has only two items on its public schedule: a meeting and a dinner with King Abdullah at his desert camp, a 30-minute helicopter ride from the capital of Riyadh.

Secretary of State John Kerry was traveling with Obama for what will be the president's third official meeting with the king in six years.

White House officials and Mideast experts say the Saudi royal family's main concern is Iran. They fear Iran's nuclear program, object to Iran's backing of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria and see the government of Tehran as having designs on oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes identified the points of anxiety in the relationship when he described Obama's agenda for the trip last week as: "Our ongoing support for Gulf security, our support for the Syrian opposition where we've been very coordinated with the Saudis, the ongoing Middle East peace discussions, as well as both the nuclear negotiations with Iran but also our joint concern for destabilizing actions that Iran is taking across the region."

The Saudi anxieties have been building over time, according to Simon Henderson, a fellow at The Washington Institute, a think tank focused on Middle East policy.

"Ever since Washington withdrew support for President (Hosni) Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, Abdullah and other Gulf leaders have worried about the reliability of Washington's posture toward even longstanding allies," Henderson wrote this week. "President Obama's U-turn on military action against Syria over its use of chemical weapons last summer only added to the concern, which has likely morphed into exasperation after recent events in Crimea, where the Saudis judge that President Obama was outmaneuvered by Vladimir Putin."

The technological advances that have increased oil and gas production in the United States have also made Gulf states nervous, said Tamara Cofman Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of its Saban Center on Middle East Policy

"A lot of people in the region, I think, are naturally asking themselves what America's energy independence means for America's willingness to invest in the security of energy and supply from the Gulf," she said.

Obama spent the past four days trying to secure European unity against Russia's incursion and subsequent annexation of Crimea. But ahead of his meeting with King Abdullah, Obama also met with Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the richest emirate in the United Arab Emirates federation and a Saudi ally.

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Obama Makes Fence-Mending Trip to Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) Worried about Moscow's intentions, President Barack Obama urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull his troops back from the border with Ukraine during an hourlong phone call Friday. The Russian leader, who initiated the call, asserted that Ukraine's government is allowing extremists to intimidate civilians with impunity.

The White House and the Kremlin offered starkly different summaries of the call, which occurred while Obama was traveling in Saudi Arabia. The contrasting interpretations underscored the chasm between how Moscow and Washington perceive the escalating international standoff sparked by Russia's annexation of Crimea away from Ukraine.

White House officials described the call as "frank and direct" and said Obama had urged Putin to offer a written response to a diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine crisis that the U.S. has presented. Obama told the Russian leader that Ukraine's government is pursuing de-escalation despite Russia's incursion into Crimea, urging Putin to support that effort. He urged Moscow to scale back its troop build-up on the border with Ukraine, which has prompted concerns in Kiev and Washington about a possible Russian invasion in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin, on the other hand, said Putin had drawn Obama's attention to a "rampage of extremists" in Ukraine and suggested "possible steps by the international community to help stabilize the situation" in Ukraine.

In a statement, the Kremlin said Putin also pointed at an "effective blockade" of Moldova's separatist region of Trans-Dniester, where Russia has troops. Russia and the local authorities have complained of Ukraine's recent moves to limit travel across the border of the region on Ukraine's southern border. There were fears in Ukraine that Russia could use its forces in Trans-Dniester to invade.

Both nations said Secretary of State John Kerry planned to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss further steps. That meeting could come as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday, when Kerry is scheduled to be in Brussels for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

Obama, in a CBS News interview aired Friday but recorded before the call, said Russia is amassing troops along the Ukrainian border "under the guise of military exercises."

"It may simply be an effort to intimidate Ukraine, or it may be that they've got additional plans," Obama said. "And in either case, what we need right now to resolve and de-escalate the situation would be for Russia to move back those troops and to begin negotiations directly with the Ukrainian government, as well as the international community."

Putin's unexpected outreach to Obama came the same day that former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych pushed for a vote to determine the status of each of the country's regions a call serving the Kremlin's purpose of turning Ukraine into a loosely knit federation and raising the threat of more unrest in Ukraine's Russian-speaking eastern provinces. The fugitive leader fled to Russia last month after three months of protests in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia's defense minister said the Ukrainian military withdrawal from Crimea was complete another sign that U.S. efforts to dissuade Russia from absorbing the peninsula have thus far been unsuccessful.

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Obama To Putin: Pull Back From Ukraine Border

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