President Joe Biden said Russia could invade Ukraine within a matter of days, ratcheting up warnings of a possible major conflict on Europe’s eastern border.
Kremlin leaders said this week that Moscow intended to pull back some forces from Ukraine’s border and hoped to continue diplomacy efforts over the standoff, claims that U.S. officials have rebuked.
SENATE SPLIT ON IMPOSING RUSSIAN SANCTIONS BEFORE OR AFTER INVASION OF UKRAINE
Speaking to reporters outside the White House Thursday, Biden gave a bleak assessment of the risk of a conflict, a threat that had appeared to subside briefly before mounting again overnight.
“It’s very high,” the president said of the threat. “My sense is it will happen within the next several days.”
“They have not moved any of their troops out. They’ve moved more troops in, number one,” he said. “Number two, we have reason to believe they are engaged in a false flag operation.”
Biden said there remains a diplomatic path forward but that this path appears increasingly unlikely.
“Every indication that we have is that they are prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine,” he added.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will speak at the United Nations Thursday to lay out the diplomatic path, which Biden said he also proposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin when the two leaders spoke over the weekend.
The president’s warning comes less than a day after a senior administration official said Moscow had increased its presence along the border with Ukraine by as many as 7,000 troops, with some arriving that day.
“Every indication we have now is they mean only to publicly offer to talk and make claims about de-escalation while privately mobilizing for war,” the official said.
Despite the stark warning, Biden said he does not plan to call Putin. Their call on Saturday was characterized as making little progress, according to a senior administration official at the time.
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“It remains unclear if Russia” wants to resolve the standoff diplomatically or through military action, the official said at the time.
The White House has warned for weeks about the prospect of a conflict, pointing to the more than 150,000 Russian soldiers massed on Ukraine’s border.
