Joe Biden declared for the first time on Friday (18) that he was “convinced” that Russian President Vladimir Putin “made the decision” to invade Ukraine, and that the multiplication of clashes aims to create a “false justification”. for launching the offensive in the next “week” or “days”.
The president of the United States, however, left the door open for dialogue. “Until (Putin) does, diplomacy is always a possibility,” Biden said in a televised White House speech, announcing that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet Thursday in Europe, with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron will speak by phone with Putin this Sunday, a day after calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky plans to attend the Munich Security Conference, which runs until Sunday and will be attended by several international leaders. However, Biden openly questioned whether it was “wise” for the Ukrainian president to leave his country amid rising tensions.
Russia denies any invasion plan, but demands guarantees for its security, such as the withdrawal of NATO from Eastern Europe, which Western countries reject.
– “False justification” –
Fears of a Russian military intervention in Ukraine have grown stronger than ever amid growing ceasefire violations between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, which have been fighting since 2014 in eastern Ukraine.
The leaders of the pro-Russian secessionist territories in this region ordered the evacuation of civilians to Russia.
“It’s all consistent with the strategy the Russians have used in the past, which is to create a false justification for intervening against Ukraine,” Biden accused, after participating in another teleconference with his NATO allies.
A US official estimated on Friday that Russia had deployed 190,000 troops, including separatist forces in Ukraine.
It is “the biggest concentration of military troops” since the Cold War, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, noting that Russia could strike without warning.
– Putin accuses Kiev –
Putin, in turn, accused Kiev of fueling the conflict and pointed to a “deterioration of the situation in Donbass”, a region where the Ukrainian army has been fighting pro-Russian forces backed 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,” the Russian president said.
The West has promised Moscow devastating economic sanctions in the event of an invasion of Ukraine. US allies would make Russia a “pariah”, a top US official said on Friday.
But Putin again played down the threat from the West: “Sanctions will be imposed no matter what. Whether there is a reason or not, they will find one, because their goal is to stop Russia from developing.”
Adding to tensions, the Russian Defense Ministry has announced that Putin will personally oversee military exercises scheduled for Saturday, which involve nuclear-capable missiles.
– Withdrawal or not? –
Throughout the day, belligerents in eastern Ukraine accused each other of violating a truce and using heavy weapons.
In the afternoon, bombing sirens could still be heard in Stanitsa Luganska, a city under Ukrainian control, according to AFP journalists. The place had already been the target of shots the day before, which hit a daycare.
The separatist leader of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, announced the evacuation of civilians to Russia, “first of all women, children and the elderly”.
His counterpart from the neighboring “republic” of Luhansk, Leonid Passetchnik, did the same before calling on “every man capable of wielding a weapon to defend his homeland”.
And Putin ordered the payment of 10,000 rubles (about 114 euros, 129 dollars) to every person who leaves these areas. Russian television channels showed footage of evacuations of children gathered in the courtyard of an orphanage.
As tensions mount, Russia reiterated on Friday that it continues to withdraw military units from outside Ukraine, a claim rejected by the Zelensky government.
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, deploying troops, increasing its logistical capabilities”.
At the same time, Washington and London accused Moscow of being “responsible” for the latest cyberattacks against official Ukrainian websites this week, despite denials from the Kremlin.
Russia says it will not walk away from Ukraine unless Western countries agree never to allow Kiev to join NATO and withdraw US forces from Eastern Europe in order to create a new version of Cold War-era spheres of influence. .
The conflict between heavily armed pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government forces in the east of the country has lasted eight years, killing more than 14,000 people and forcing more than 1.5 million to flee their homes.
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