The United States said on Sunday that Russia could invade Ukraine at any time and could create a surprise pretext for an attack, as it reaffirmed its commitment to defending “every inch” of NATO territory.
Russia has assembled more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine, which is not part of the Atlantic military alliance, and Washington has repeatedly said an invasion is imminent while maintaining diplomatic channels that have so far failed to defuse the crisis.
Fearing an imminent Russian invasion, Ukraine is training an army of civilian soldiers to bolster its defenses.
Moscow denies any such plans and accuses the West of “hysteria”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Russia to de-escalate the situation ahead of Monday’s trip to Kiev and Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin, warning of sanctions if Moscow does invade .
A German official said Berlin was not expecting “concrete results” but diplomacy was important.
In Washington, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jack Sullivan, said the intrusion could begin “any day now.”
“We can’t predict this day perfectly, but we’ve been saying we’re in the window for a while,” Sullivan told CNN.
U.S. officials said they could not confirm reports that U.S. intelligence agencies suggested Russia planned an incursion on Wednesday.
Sullivan said Washington will continue to share with the world what it has learned to deny Moscow the opportunity to launch an unexpected “false flag” operation that could serve as a pretext for an attack.
It will also “defend every inch of NATO … we think Russia fully understands the message,” Sullivan added in a separate CBS interview.
The White House said after the conference call that Biden spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Zelensky on Sunday, and they agreed on the importance of continuing to seek diplomacy and deterrence in response to a Russian military buildup.
Zelensky’s office said he invited Biden to visit Ukraine soon. The White House declined to comment.
A UK government spokesman agreed with the US assessment that an invasion could happen “at any time” and said the UK was working on a package of military support and economic aid for Ukraine that would be announced in the coming days. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to visit Europe later this week to garner support to end the standoff with Russia.
Putin wants assurances from the United States and NATO, including preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, avoiding the deployment of missiles near Russia’s borders, and reducing NATO’s military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels.
Washington sees many of these proposals as unworkable, but has pushed the Kremlin to discuss them with Washington and its European allies.
“The diplomatic path remains open. The way for Moscow to show that it wants to take that path is simple,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Saturday after talks with Asian allies.
Washington, its European allies and other countries have been scaling back or evacuating embassy staff and urging citizens to leave immediately or avoid traveling to Ukraine.
U.S. staff of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) began driving on Sunday from the rebel-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a Reuters witness said.
The OSCE operates in Ukraine, including a Russian-backed civilian monitoring mission in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of the self-proclaimed separatist republic, where the war that began in 2014 has killed more than 14,000 people.
Ukraine said on Sunday it hoped to hold talks with Russia and OSCE members within 48 hours to discuss Russia’s military buildup. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said Moscow did not respond after Kiev on Friday invoked part of the Vienna document, a set of security protocols, asking Moscow to explain its military activities.
Dutch airline KLM said it would stop flying to Ukraine, and Germany’s Lufthansa said it was considering suspending flights.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, said that whatever the airline chooses to do, Kiev will not close its airspace because it is akin to “a kind of partial blockade”.
What the Russian leader said after President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Putin was no indication Moscow was preparing for an offensive, a French presidential official said on Saturday, although Paris remained “on high alert”.
British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace cautioned against getting too much hope for the talks, telling London’s The Sunday Times that “there is a smell of Munich in the air for some in the West”, referring to a 1938 agreement Can stop Germany in Adolf Hitler.
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