White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said there is “a distinct possibility” that Russia will launch an attack on Ukraine, which might come before the Winter Olympics in Beijing conclude on February 20.
The United States warned this Friday that there is a “clear possibility” that Russia will attack Ukraine next week, for which he asked his citizens to leave the country in the next 48 hours and ordered the deployment of 3,000 more soldiers in Poland.
Both the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and the White House National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned of the “high risk” of Russia attacking Ukraine during the Winter Olympics, which are held until 20 December. February in Beijing.
“Our impression that military action might happen any day, before the end of the Olympic Games, is becoming more and more resounding. It’s a very, very distinct possibility,” Sullivan said, hours following Blinken issued a similar warning from Australia.
At a press conference, Sullivan acknowledged that the United States is still not clear that Russia has made a definitive decision to invade, but assured that it has “all the forces it needs to launch a major military operation” on Ukraine’s borders.
“If there is a Russian attack on Ukraine, it is likely to start with aerial bombardments and missile attacks that would obviously kill civilians, regardless of their nationality,” said adviser to the US president, Joe Biden.
Next there would probably be “a ground invasion involving a huge number of Russian troops”, possibly with “a rapid assault on the city of Kiev”, and in that context commercial means of transport might be interrupted “with practically no advance notice”, he added.
Escape in 48 hours
BecauseSullivan urged Americans in Ukraine to leave the country “within the next 24 to 48 hours” and warned that there is “no prospect of a military evacuation from the United States in the event of a Russian invasion.”
“The president will not endanger the lives of our men and women in uniform by sending them into a war zone to rescue people who might have left but chose not to,” he stressed.
His “urgent message” to Americans in Ukraine came days following Biden called for the first time for the 6,600 US citizens who, according to the State Department, were living on Ukrainian territory to leave the country at the end of last year.
The United Kingdom, Norway and Denmark also asked their citizens to leave Ukraine this Friday while there are still commercial means available to do so, while Spain assured that it has prepared the evacuation device for Spaniards in case it had to be activated.
3,000 more soldiers to Poland
The tone of alarm also increased in the Pentagon, which ordered the deployment of 3,000 more soldiers in Poland to “dissuade any potential aggression once morest NATO’s eastern flank,” a high-ranking Defense official told Efe.
This brings to 6,000 the number of soldiers that the United States has decided to send to Europe temporarily to respond to the crisis in Ukraine, and that joins the more than 80,000 US soldiers who are on missions on the continent. permanent or rotating.
The 3,000 troops that the Pentagon ordered to deploy this Friday are added to another 1,700 that Biden authorized sending last week to Poland, another 1,000 that he decided to assign to Romania and another 300 to Germany, all of them under US command, and not from NATO.
Biden reviewed the situation in Ukraine this Friday with a dozen NATO allies, and this Saturday he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since December 30, a senior US official told Efe.
Biden will talk to Putin
The conversation will take place tomorrow in Washington, according to the source, who explained that Russia initially wanted the call to take place on Monday, but the White House pushed to move it up to Saturday, something the Kremlin accepted.
“We would like to find a diplomatic solution,” Sullivan insisted on Friday.
Russia insists that it does not want a war with Ukraine and has demanded a series of security guarantees from the West to prevent NATO from expanding further east and placing offensive weapons near Russian borders.
On the call this Friday, Biden and the leaders of seven other NATO member countries vowed to continue “coordinating their efforts to deter further Russian aggression once morest Ukraine,” including the prospect of imposing “massive” sanctions on Moscow if it were to invade, according to the White House.
The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz; the president of France, Emmanuel Macron; British Prime Minister Boris Johnson; his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau; and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
The presidents of Poland, Andrzej Duda, and of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, also joined; in addition to the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
“Whatever happens, the West is more united than it has been in years,” Sullivan said.
