US President, Joe Biden, has said he is convinced Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has decided to launch into invasion of Ukraine, and that an assault could happen in the “coming days”.
Mr. Biden said the assessment was based on US intelligence, which suggested the capital, Kyiv would be targeted.
But in the midst of all these happenings, Russia denies planning an invasion.
Western nations have accused Russia of trying to stage a fake crisis in breakaway eastern regions of Ukraine to give it a reason to launch an offensive attack.
The US has estimated that 169,000-190,000 Russian personnel are massed in and near Ukraine, a figure that includes Russian-backed fighters in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk of eastern Ukraine.
In a televised address from the White House, President Biden said the US had “reason to believe” that Russian forces were “planning to and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days”.
“As of this moment I am convinced that he has made the decision,” he added, referring to President Putin. Previously, the president and his top officials said they did not know whether this was the case.
But, Mr. Biden said, Russia could “still choose diplomacy” and that it was “not too late to de-escalate and return to the negotiating table”.
Earlier on Friday, February 18, 2022, in another sign of rising tensions, leaders of the two separatist areas announced an evacuation of residents, saying Ukraine had intensified shelling and was planning an attack.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it is not planning any attack, and Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, dismissed what he called “Russian disinformation reports”.
Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), Denis Pushilin, announced the evacuation in a video purported to have been filmed on Friday, February 18, 2022.
The Kremlin said President Putin had ordered that refugee camps be set up near the border and “emergency” aid paid to people arriving from the separatist areas. Russian state media reported that several buses carrying local residents had made their way to Russia.
The US State Department called the announcement of evacuations a “cynical” move by Moscow “to distract the world from the fact that Russia is building up its forces in preparation for an attack”. The White House said the evacuations were an example of Moscow using misinformation as a pretext for war.
On Friday (February 18, 2022) night, Ukraine’s military intelligence service said it had received information that explosives had been planted at infrastructure facilities in Donetsk in preparation for a so-called false flag attack, an operation carried out with the intention of blaming an opponent for it.
Earlier, separatist authorities said a parked jeep had been blown up near a government building in Donetsk. US and Ukrainian officials said it was a staged attack designed to fuel tensions.
Russia has been backing an armed rebellion in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region since 2014. About 14,000 people, including many civilians, have died in the fighting.
Mr. Putin, meanwhile, said the situation in eastern Ukraine was deteriorating. At a news conference, he made unsubstantiated accusations of “mass and systematic violations of human rights” and enshrining in law “discrimination of the Russian speaking population” in Ukraine.
He said he remained willing to discuss the crisis with Western leaders, but accused them of ignoring Russia’s security concerns, and warned that any deal must include a legally binding pledge that the NATO security alliance will stop its eastward expansion.
On Saturday, February 19, 2022, President Putin is expected to oversee major drills of Russia’s strategic nuclear missile forces.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, is due to travel to Germany to meet Western leaders at a security conference, with talks between him and US Vice-President, Kamala Harris expected.
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