The United States assured this Sunday that Russia has launched its “manual” to invade Ukraine, and warned that such aggression could be imminent because, according to US intelligence, the Kremlin has already given the order to attack.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has argued that Moscow’s decision to prolong its military presence in Belarus longer than originally announced is a prelude to an attack on Ukraine, something Russia denies.
“Everything we are seeing points to the fact that this is completely serious, that they are about to invade,” Blinken said in an interview with the television network CNN.
The head of US diplomacy also cited hostilities in eastern Ukraine and cyberattacks last week as signs that Russia has “set the manual in motion” to attack the neighboring country.
The alleged Kremlin order to invade
All the steps leading up to the actual invasion seem to be taking place
In recent days, the United States has deployed an unprecedented strategy that involves publicly explaining, in as many details as possible, how a Russian attack on Ukraine could unfold, with the aim of disrupting the Kremlin’s alleged plans.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, arrived on Friday to declare that he was “convinced” that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had already made the decision to invade Ukraine.
Several media outlets assured this Sunday that Biden’s statement was based on information received by US intelligence agencies last week, according to which the Kremlin has already given orders to Russian military commanders to invade Ukraine.
As a result, between 40 and 50% of the more than 150,000 Russian troops surrounding Ukraine have begun to prepare for combat, according to official sources cited by The New York Times.
Those alleged orders from Russia could still be annulled, and it is possible that what US intelligence intercepts is disinformation that the Kremlin may have spread to confuse the West, official sources quoted by the CNN network clarified.
However, according to The New York Times, US agencies have a “high degree of confidence” in the quality of their information, saying that Russia is already taking steps that the United States had anticipated as part of a possible prelude to an invasion.
“All the steps prior to the invasion itself seem to be taking place,” Blinken said on Sunday.
Putin’s ‘handbook’
The head of US diplomacy was referring to the alleged Russian plan that he himself detailed last Thursday before the UN, according to which Russia would begin by creating a “pretext” that justifies its attack, followed by bombing Ukraine.
That phase would be followed by a communications blockade, cyberattacks against key institutions and, finally, the entry into Ukraine of “tanks and soldiers” that would advance to Kiev, according to Blinken.
For Washington, the attacks with artillery pieces registered this Saturday in eastern Ukraine and the accusations by pro-Russian separatists in Donbas about an alleged Ukrainian offensive against them are signs that Putin has put his plan into action.
The head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, warned in an interview with ABC News that the military capacity that Russia has deployed on the other side of the Ukraine border is “very dangerous”, and considered it “very likely” that, if Putin invades, tanks arrive in the Ukrainian capital.
room for diplomacy
Blinken stressed, however, thatUS President Joe Biden is willing to talk to his Russian counterpart “at any time and in any format to prevent a war.”
“Until the tanks are rolling and the planes are flying, we will use every opportunity and every minute we have to see if diplomacy can still dissuade President Putin from doing this,” the Foreign Minister stressed in his interview with CNN.
Blinken added that he himself maintains his intention to meet this week in Europe with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “unless Russia invades” Ukraine first.
For his part, the US president met this Sunday with his national security council to assess the crisis in Ukraine, although the White House did not give details about that meeting.
Biden then spoke on the phone for around 15 minutes with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, who had previously spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to the Elysee, Macron and Putin agreed to work towards a ceasefire on the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, where the Ukrainian regular army and the pro-Russian militias face each other.
Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador in Washington, Anatoli Antonov, downplayed the fact that Russia and Belarus have decided to extend the inspection time of the forces that have participated in their military exercises beyond this Sunday, when their end was scheduled.
“There is no plan to start a war. We don’t want a war,” the Russian diplomat insisted in an interview with CBS News.
EFE
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