Joe Biden, the President of the United States, said he assured that Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to initiate an attack on Ukraine and that an invasion could occur in the coming days. The U.S. President said the evaluation based on American intelligence, which proposed Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, would target the Russian leader.
On the other hand, Russian officials deny all allegations to invade Ukraine. Furthermore, western nations show their concerns that Russia is trying to present a forged crisis in autonomous eastern regions of Ukraine to give it a reason to start aggression. The United States forecasts that around 169000 to 190000 Russian military personnel amassed in and near Ukraine. This number consists of Russian-funded troops in the self-declared states of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
Joe Biden, the US President, said that Putin decided to attack Ukraine. Biden added that he is convinced that Putin made the decision, and the US has a reason to believe that. While, the Russian military announced that it would hold massive military drills of its nuclear forces. pic.twitter.com/DsoVhYyqgU
— Live News Now (@LiveNewsNow6) February 19, 2022
In addition, Biden said in a broadcast address from the White House that the United States had a reason to believe that the Russian military was preparing to and planned to attack Ukraine in the coming days, in the upcoming week. However, he added that he was convinced that he had decided as of the moment.
Biden Urged the Russian President to come to Negotiating Table
Previously, Biden and his top officials said they didn’t know whether this was the case. However, the president said, Moscow could still choose diplomacy and that it was not too late to de-escalate the tensions and return to the diplomatic talks. On Friday, in another sign of mounting tensions, leaders of both separatist areas announced to withdraw residents amid the invasion fears, saying Ukraine had deepened shelling and was planning an invasion.
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Instead, Ukraine constantly said that it was not planning any invasion and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba rejected what he described as propaganda reports from Russia. Hundreds of thousands of individuals live in the region, and such withdrawal would be a huge undertaking. Additionally, there is no clue that evacuation is looming, but state media of Russia did report that many buses carrying local inhabitants had proceeded towards Russia.
The Kremlin said that Putin had instructed to set up refugee camps near the border and pay emergency aid to individuals coming from the separatist areas. Since 2014, Russia backed an armed rebellion in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. Around fourteen thousand individuals – including several civilians – lost their lives in the fighting.
Antony Blinken, the United States Secretary of State, said events during the last forty-eight hours were part of Russian officials’ efforts to create misleading provocations to make excuses for further aggression. Blinken plans to meet in person with Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, on 24th February.
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