Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden are to hold a high-stakes telephone call on Saturday as tensions over a possibility imminent invasion of Ukraine escalated sharply and the US announced plans to evacuate its embassy in the Ukrainian capital. Before talking to Biden, Putin is to have a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with him in Moscow earlier in the week to try to resolve the crisis. Russia has massed troops near the Ukraine border and has sent troops to exercises in neighbouring Belarus, but insistently denies that it intends to launch an offensive against Ukraine.
Adding to the sense of crisis, the Pentagon ordered an additional 3,000 US troops to Poland to reassure allies. Biden has said the US military will not enter a war in Ukraine, but he has promised severe economic sanctions against Moscow, in concert with international allies. The timing of any possible Russian military action remains a key question. The US picked up intelligence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a US official familiar with the findings. The official, who was not authorised to speak publicly and did so only on condition of anonymity, would not say how definitive the intelligence was, and the White House publicly underscored that the US does not know with certainty whether Putin is committed to invasion.
However, US officials said anew that Russia's buildup of offensive air, land and sea firepower near Ukraine has reached the point where it could invade on short notice. US officials told The Associated Press that the State Department plans to announce Saturday that virtually all American staff at the Kyiv embassy will be required to leave. The State Department would not comment. The department had earlier ordered families of US embassy staffers in Kyiv to leave. But it had left it to the discretion of nonessential personnel if they wanted to depart. Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, urged all Americans in Ukraine to leave, emphasising that they should not expect the US military to rescue them in the event that air and rail transportation is severed after a Russian invasion.
Several NATO allies including Britain, Canada, Norway and Denmark also are asking their citizens to leave Ukraine, as is non-NATO ally New Zealand. Sullivan said Russian military action could start with missile and air attacks, followed by a ground offensive. Yes, it is an urgent message because we are in an urgent situation, he told reporters at the White House. Russia has all the forces it needs to conduct a major military action, Sullivan said, adding, Russia could choose, in very short order, to commence a major military action against Ukraine. He said the scale of such an invasion could range from a limited incursion to a strike on Kyiv, the capital.
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