White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that a Russian invasion of Ukraine might happen at any moment, and that the United States would continue to release the intelligence at its disposal so that Russia might not “make up a pretext” for a surprise attack at any time.
On a program on CNN, Sullivan declined to answer the question whether US intelligence agencies believed Russia would launch an attack on Wednesday, as some reports speculated.
“We cannot predict the exact day, but for some time we have been saying that the attack might happen on any day, and that includes next week, before the end of the Olympics,” he said.
These comments come at a time of heightened tension over a possible Russian invasion, which Moscow denies.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has justified his country’s decision to evacuate the US embassy in Kiev.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian president called for calm, saying that the biggest enemy is “panic”.
More than a dozen countries have called on their nationals to leave Ukraine.
Moscow, which is massing more than 100,000 troops on the border, has denied its intention to invade Ukraine.
The Kremlin’s top foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, denied that there were plans to invade Ukraine, saying, “Hysteria has reached its climax.”
There were additional attempts to defuse tensions in the region on Saturday. In a phone call, US President Joe Biden warned Russian leader Vladimir Putin of a “heavy price” for any Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace compared current Western diplomatic efforts to “the appeasement of Nazi Germany”.
“There’s a Munich whiff in the air,” he told the Sunday Times, referring to an agreement with Hitler that failed to prevent World War II.
Wallace also said that “the possibility of an attack remains high and might happen at any time.”
picture released, Getty Images
Civilians in Ukraine take part in an exercise
Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain, Vadim Prystaiko, criticized Wallace’s comments, telling the BBC that “this is not the time for us to offend our partners in the world, and remind them of this act which [جلب] war already.”
“reasonable solution”
Several countries, including the United States, Britain and Germany, advised their citizens to leave Ukraine immediately.
Canada and Australia joined the United States in evacuating staff from their embassies in Kiev.
The three embassies moved their operations to the western city of Lviv, near the border with Poland. As for the British ambassador, she said that she will remain in the Ukrainian capital with a limited work team.
“The risk of military action is so high and the threat is so close that evacuating embassies would be prudent,” Blinken said.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called earlier for calm and said, “The biggest enemy now is panic.”
Zelensky said he had not yet seen any evidence of a nearby Russian invasion.
BBC correspondent Jana Bisbyachuk said there were no strong signs of panic in Kiev or any major Ukrainian cities. But she added that the Ukrainians are taking the Russian threat increasingly seriously and are taking precautionary measures.
A plan has been drawn up to evacuate Kiev’s 3 million residents as a precaution.
And the White House warned that the invasion might happen at any moment, and might start with an aerial bombardment.
Tensions have steadily increased as Russia continues to build up its forces along Ukraine’s eastern border. Russia also conducted its largest naval maneuvers in the Black Sea in years, and Ukraine accused it of imposing a naval blockade.
The crisis comes eight years following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which was followed by a war between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels in the eastern regions of the border with Russia.
The Kremlin says that it cannot accept Ukraine’s accession to NATO, and demands that this possibility be excluded, which was rejected by the United States, saying that Ukraine is an independent country and should be free to define its security alliances.