Joe Biden for the first time said he was “convinced” on Friday that Vladimir Putin had made “the decision” to invade Ukraine and that the multiplication of clashes was intended to create a “false justification” to launch the offensive in “ the week” or even “the days” to come.
• Read also: Putin notes the “worsening of the situation” in eastern Ukraine
• Read also: Ukraine: clashes multiply, tensions at their peak
• Read also: Ukraine: a war would be “catastrophic”, warns the head of the UN
But the President of the United States has left the door open to dialogue. As long as an invasion has not occurred, “diplomacy is always a possibility,” he said, announcing a meeting between his Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday ” in Europe”.
To “avoid the worst”, Paris said for its part that French President Emmanuel Macron would speak on the phone with Vladimir Putin on Sunday, the day following a call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
The latter plans to go to the Munich Security Conference, which is held until Sunday with many international leaders. Joe Biden has openly questioned whether it was “wise” for him to leave Ukraine as the tension is at its height.
“Cynical and cruel”
Fears of a Russian military intervention in Ukraine were stronger than ever on Friday amid rising ceasefire violations between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces who have been fighting since 2014 in eastern Ukraine in a conflict which has already caused more than 14,000 deaths.
The authorities of the pro-Russian secessionist territories in this region ordered the evacuation of civilians to Russia.
“All of this is consistent with the strategy the Russians have used in the past, which is to create a false justification for intervening once morest Ukraine,” President Biden said in remarks from the White House following another meeting. virtual with its European and NATO allies.
“It is cynical and cruel to use human beings as pawns to divert the attention of the world from the fact that Russia is building up its troops for an attack,” a spokesman for the Department of Defense said just before. American State.
A US official estimated on Friday that Russia had 190,000 troops on the outskirts of Ukraine and on its territory, including separatist forces. So far, Washington was talking regarding more than 150,000 troops at the country’s borders.
It is “the largest concentration of military troops” since the Cold War, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, judging that Moscow was “able, without further warning, to attack” the neighboring country.
Putin accuses Kiev
The Russian president accused Kiev of fueling the conflict and noted a “worsening of the situation in Donbass”, a region where the Ukrainian army has been fighting pro-Russian forces supported by Moscow for eight years.
“All Kiev has to do is sit down at the negotiating table with the representatives (of the separatists) of Donbass and come to an agreement”, he said, receiving his counterpart from Belarus and ally , Alexander Lukashenko.
The West unanimously promised Moscow devastating economic sanctions in the event of an invasion of Ukraine. They would make Russia a “pariah”, hammered an American official on Friday.
But Vladimir Putin once more dismissed the threat: “the sanctions will be introduced no matter what. Whether there is a reason or not, they will find one because their aim is to slow down the development of Russia”.
Withdrawal or not?
Throughout the day, belligerents in eastern Ukraine have accused each other of violating a truce and using heavy weapons.
In the followingnoon, shelling was still heard in Stanitsa Luganska, a city under Ukrainian control, according to AFP journalists. She had already been targeted the day before by shots which notably hit a nursery school.
The separatist leader of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, for his part announced an evacuation of civilians to Russia, “in the first place women, children and the elderly”.
His counterpart from the neighboring “republic” of Lugansk, Leonid Passechnik, did the same before calling “all men capable of holding a weapon to defend their homeland”.
And the Russian president ordered the payment of 10,000 rubles (regarding 114 euros) to each person leaving these areas. Russian television channels showed images of evacuations of children gathered in the courtyard of their orphanage.
As tensions rise on the ground, Russia once more claimed on Friday to withdraw military units from the outskirts of Ukraine, without however convincing its opponents.
“That is not happening,” replied Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov before the deputies.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin even claimed that the Russian military was sending “more forces” and preparing for an intervention “by moving closer to the border, positioning troops, increasing their logistical capabilities”.
Russia denies any plan of invasion but demands guarantees for its security, such as the withdrawal of NATO from Eastern Europe, all demands rejected by the West.
At the same time, Washington and London have accused Moscow of being “responsible” for the latest cyberattacks that targeted official Ukrainian websites this week, despite denials from the Kremlin.
