WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden said Friday that the United States believes Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to launch an attack on Ukraine “in the coming days.”
“We have reason to believe that Russian forces are planning and intending to attack Ukraine in the next week, in the coming days,” Biden said in remarks at the White House. “We believe they will target the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people.”
The stunning revelation came as a large number of Russian forces advanced on the northern and eastern flanks of Ukraine.
The increase in military presence mimicking the play by Russia before it illegally annexed Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea, sparked international uproar and triggered sanctions against it. Moscow.
The Biden administration has previously rejected predictions of Putin’s tricks even as Russia has deployed nearly half of its troops to the Ukrainian border. When asked, Biden said that there is still time for Putin to choose the diplomatic route.
In his second speech this week, Biden reiterated the US commitment to protect NATO allies should the crisis on Ukraine’s border with Russia erupt into full-blown war.
“The United States and our allies are prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory from any threat to our collective security,” Biden said, recalling the Article 5 rule of the United States. League.
The foundation of the 30-member alliance is the principle of collective defense, known as Article 5which states that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all allies.
The Kremlin denies reports that more than 150,000 Russian troops armed with advanced military equipment along the Ukrainian border are preparing for an invasion.
Biden said that while he would not commit to sending US troops to Ukraine, he would approve the deployment of troops to NATO member states. Earlier, on Friday, Biden sent more US troops and military equipment to Hungary, a NATO ally that shares a border with Ukraine.
Earlier, on Thursday, Foreign Minister Antony Blinken warned that Russia’s new aggression against Ukraine would disrupt not only European security but also the international order that maintains world peace.
The top US diplomat explained during the discussion at the Munich Security Conference: “What is at stake is, first of all, the lives and well-being of Ukrainians, but what is at stake are the the larger principle, which is the foundation of the entire international order”.
“Those principles are being challenged by Russia right now in Ukraine, principles like you can’t change another country’s borders by force, principles like you can’t dictate another country their choices, their decisions, their policies including who they are with. association, principles like you can’t create a sphere of influence to subdue the neighbors to their will,” said Blinken. added.
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