How Has Us Foreign Policy Toward Europe Changed Since Nato Was Formed? Check All That Apply.
Biden Says Putin Has Chosen 'Catastrophic' State of war Over Diplomacy
President Biden spoke amid fears that Russia was setting the stage for an invasion that could ignite the biggest disharmonize in Europe in decades.
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WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Friday that the United States has intelligence showing that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has made a concluding conclusion to refuse diplomatic overtures and invade Ukraine, in what Mr. Biden said would exist a "catastrophic and needless war of option" in Eastern Europe.
Speaking from the Roosevelt Room in the White House, Mr. Biden said "we have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning to and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days," adding that "we believe that they will target Ukraine'due south capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people."
Asked whether he thinks that Mr. Putin is all the same wavering about whether to invade, Mr. Biden said, "I'm convinced he'southward fabricated the conclusion." Afterward, he added that his impression of Mr. Putin's intentions is based on "a meaning intelligence capability."
All the same, Mr. Biden implored Russia to "cull diplomacy."
"Information technology is not besides tardily to de-escalate and render to the negotiating table," Mr. Biden said, referring to planned talks between Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Russia's foreign minister on Th. "If Russia takes military activeness before that date, it will be clear that they have slammed the door close on affairs."
In the hours before Mr. Biden's tardily afternoon remarks, Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine called for mass evacuations in two contested regions of the country, challenge, with piddling evidence, that Ukraine's armed forces was almost to launch a large-calibration attack there, an assertion that appeared intended to provoke Russian armed services intervention.
The ominous messaging of the rebels in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk was loudly echoed by Moscow, raising fears that Russia was setting the phase for an imminent invasion that could ignite the biggest disharmonize in Europe in decades.
The call by the Russian-backed separatists for evacuations came every bit they blamed Ukraine for an array of provocations, including shelling forth the front lines between Ukraine and the separatist forces, and an explosion involving an empty car that pro-Moscow news outlets said belonged to the caput of the region's security services.
Mr. Biden, who had merely concluded a video call with a dozen Western leaders, rejected the claims every bit lies intended by Mr. Putin to inflame the situation on the ground and provide a pretext for war — something the United States and other European leaders had been warning nearly for weeks.
He cited the bombing of a Ukrainian kindergarten as a Russian federation-backed provocation. And he pointed to Russian separatist accusations that Ukraine was planning to launch a major offensive set on as bear witness of Russian efforts to justify military activity with misinformation.
"There is but no prove to these assertions, and it defies basic logic to believe the Ukrainians would choose this moment, with well over 150,000 troops arrayed on its borders, to escalate a yearlong conflict," Mr. Biden said.
The president's comments are the clearest indications of just how close the earth may be to the largest disharmonize in Europe since World War Ii. He took the highly unusual course of specifically predicting the fourth dimension frame and parameters of the invasion, despite the risks that he could be proved incorrect.
"We're calling out Russia's plans loudly and repeatedly," Mr. Biden said. "Not considering we want a conflict but because we're doing everything in our power to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine and foreclose them from moving."
The president did not say how the administration knew about Mr. Putin's decision, but two U.Due south. officials said the president's assessment was based in role on new intelligence showing that almost half of the 150,000 Russian forces have moved out of staging and into combat germination and could launch a total-scale invasion within days.
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The force includes 120 to 125 battalion tactical groups, up from the mid-80s before in the calendar month. And some of the forces are Russian reservists who would make up an occupation force afterward an invasion, the officials said. The officials asked for anonymity to hash out regime assessments.
Mr. Biden vowed that the United states of america and its allies were united behind imposing severe economic sanctions if Russia's forces cantankerous Ukraine'due south borders. He said he also held a telephone call with Democratic and Republican lawmakers who expressed united support for the administration during a visit to Munich for a security briefing.
In Ukraine, the head of the state'southward Ministry of Defense said the claim of an imminent attack by its military was categorically false and intended to inflame tensions. But the ministry issued a stark warning to residents of the contested regions "not to leave their homes and not to employ public transport." It cited "data that Russian special services take mined a number of social infrastructure facilities in Donetsk," with the aim of "destabilizing the situation" there.
The warning reflected how Russia appeared to be pulling out all the stops to pressure the Ukrainians short of sending its troops across the border.
Paradigm
The fears of brewing conflict were reinforced as U.Due south. officials said that every bit many equally 190,000 troops and aligned militias were arrayed in and near Ukraine, a number that includes the separatists. The assessment was delivered in a statement by the U.S. mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which called it "the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the 2d World War."
Consistent with Russian federation'southward contradictory messaging throughout the crunch, however, Mr. Putin said on Friday that he was prepared for further diplomacy. The declaration of the meeting betwixt Mr. Blinken and the Russian foreign government minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, calmed jittery markets and suggested that there was still hope for the crisis to be resolved without war.
Simply Mr. Putin emphasized that Russia would continue to insist on far-reaching demands for "security guarantees" in Eastern Europe that the West has rejected — such as a halt to the east expansion of NATO and the pullback of the alliance's forces from the region.
"We are ready to keep the negotiating track nether the condition that all questions will be considered together, without beingness separated from Russia's master proposals," Mr. Putin said in a news conference alongside his close marry President Aleksandr M. Lukashenko of Belarus, who was visiting Moscow.
Friday's drumbeat of alarms from the separatists about Ukrainian provocations aligned with how Western officials have been warning that a "false flag" incident could exist used to start a military machine conflict.
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In calling for people in the contested areas to evacuate to Russian federation, Denis Pushilin, the pro-Moscow leader of the Donetsk People'southward Republic, offered a stark version of what might be coming in citing supposed provocations by Ukraine.
"Very soon, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky will order the military to go along an offensive, to implement a plan to invade the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics," he said in a video posted online, offering no evidence.
Kyiv firmly denied Moscow'south accusations. And in his remarks Friday, Mr. Biden said at that place was "no evidence" behind them.
Although Moscow insists that it has no plans for an invasion, it has vowed to mount "a tough response" if the U.s. and its NATO partners practice not ringlet back their presence in Eastern Europe.
In a demonstration of strength, Russia plans major drills this weekend that volition include the launch of ballistic and prowl missiles, the country's Defense Ministry said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Russian federation's drills will exam its strategic nuclear forces, which include the land-based launchers, bombers and warships used to deliver nuclear weapons. They volition involve the Black Sea Fleet, which has been engaged in big-scale exercises in the region adjoining Ukraine. Mr. Putin will preside over them from a "state of affairs center," the Kremlin said.
The Defense force Ministry said the drills had been planned in advance, and Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin's spokesman, denied that they were intended to raise tensions with the West. But they will come at a critical juncture in the standoff over Ukraine.
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Most the front in Ukraine, it was possible to hear the blasts from munitions fired by the Ukrainian war machine and incoming burn down from the pro-Russian separatists.
A full of 12 houses were damaged past shelling Friday morning, said a local co-operative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In remarks before Ukraine's parliament, the country's defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, urged Ukrainians living in the separatist-held territory not to believe Russian propaganda that the Ukrainian government was going to attack them.
"Don't be agape," he said. "Ukraine is not your enemy."
An estimated 3.5 meg people live in the two breakaway regions, and self-declared republics, and since the state of war started there, Russian federation has handed out citizenship to more than 700,000 people living in the Donbas region. In his messaging on Ukraine, Mr. Putin has warned of the plight of indigenous Russians in the state, saying that events in eastern Ukraine "resemble genocide."
Highlighting the growing gamble of armed forces disharmonize, Great britain appear Friday dark that it was following the The states' lead in evacuating its embassy from Kyiv to the western city of Lviv.
With fears running high that Russian troops in Republic of belarus could invade Ukraine from the northern border with Belarus, merely 140 miles from the uppercase, the Ukrainian authorities ordered the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster closed to tourists.
Valerie Hopkins and Marc Santora reported from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Moscow. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/us/politics/biden-ukraine-russia.html
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