National security adviser Jake Sullivan expressed a new level of urgency for Americans to leave Ukraine ahead of a possible Russian invasion.
Sullivan, who briefed the press on Friday afternoon at the White House, recommended that Americans in Ukraine leave within “24 to 48 hours,” specifically noting that leaving in that time frame would ensure commercial transportation options remain available.
“Any American in Ukraine should leave as soon as possible and, in any event, in the next 24 to 48 hours. We obviously cannot predict the future. We don’t know exactly what is going to happen, but the risk is now high enough and the threat is now immediate enough that this is what prudence demands,” he said. “If you stay, you are assuming risk with no guarantee that there will be any other opportunity to leave, and there’s no prospect of a U.S. military evacuation action in the event of a Russian invasion.”
US TROOPS PREPARING TO HELP AMERICANS FLEEING UKRAINE SHOULD RUSSIA INVADE
A day earlier, President Joe Biden affirmed that U.S. troops, while thousands have been deployed to various European countries, will not go into Ukraine, either to fight Russian forces should an invasion occur or help Americans leave the country. The military may, however, help evacuate Americans once they cross into Poland.
Biden deployed approximately 3,000 troops to Eastern European countries to provide support for allies earlier this month, while roughly 8,500 troops are on “heightened alert” for a deployment should NATO call up forces.
Sullivan also provided a bleak picture of what an invasion could look like for those in Ukraine and how it’d affect people who would want to leave.
“If a Russian attack on Ukraine proceeds, it is likely to begin with aerial bombing and missile attacks that could obviously kill civilians without regard to their nationality,” he explained. “A subsequent ground invasion would involve the onslaught of a massive force; with virtually no notice communications to arrange, a departure could be severed and commercial transit halted. No one would be able to count on air or rail or road departures once military action got underway.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken also warned Thursday that an incursion “could begin at any time,” even during the Olympics, which officials had believed would hold up an invasion.
“There’s not [one],” Biden said when asked in an interview by NBC’s Lester Holt about a possible evacuation plan. “That’s a world war — when Americans and Russians start shooting at one another, we’re in a very different world than we’ve ever been in.”
Russia’s military has more than 100,000 troops deployed to its border with Ukraine, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed as recently as Wednesday, while Russia also has troops in Belarus, another country that shares a border with Ukraine, and it’s closer to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, than Russia.
For weeks, the administration has warned that Russia could launch a “false-flag operation” to justify an invasion. Kirby recently told reporters, “We believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations.”
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U.S. officials have repeatedly said they’re unsure whether Vladimir Putin will ultimately decide to invade Ukraine. Putin has demanded that NATO stop expanding eastward into Ukraine, while the United States has threatened significant economic sanctions should Russia invade.
PBS Newshour reported shortly before Sullivan’s briefing that the U.S. now believes Putin has decided to invade Ukraine and that he had communicated the decision to the military, but the national security adviser denied the report.
