Russian forces are poised to invade Ukraine within the next few hours, a top Biden administration official conceded Wednesday evening.
“I do,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said when asked by NBC News’s Lester Holt if he believes an invasion would happen before the night is over. The interview aired during the 7 p.m. EST hour, which is 2 a.m. in Kyiv. Blinken also said he could not put a “date or an exact time” on an incursion.
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“Unfortunately, Russia has positioned its forces at the final point of readiness across Ukraine’s borders to the north, to the east, to the south. Everything seems to be in place for Russia to engage in a major aggression against Ukraine,” Blinken added on NBC Nightly News.
After responding to @LesterHoltNBC in the affirmative if he believes Russia will launch a full invasion of Ukraine tonight, Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he can’t put an exact date or time on it, but says everything is in place.
— Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) February 24, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an address Wednesday, spoken mostly in Russian, in which he warned that the Kremlin had nearly 200,000 soldiers and thousands of armored vehicles on the border ready to attack his country after Russian President Vladimir Putin had already recognized two occupied regions, the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic, as independent and tasked troops to go into those areas as so-called peacekeepers.
Zelensky said he attempted to call Putin but was met with “silence.” He pleaded with the Russian people, insisting that the two nations did not have to be enemies and arguing that Ukraine is not a threat to Russia. His remarks contrasted the long speech Putin delivered Monday discussing the history of Ukraine and claiming that Ukraine was essentially a colony of Western powers.
“Listen to the voice of reason. The people of Ukraine want peace. The authorities in Ukraine want peace. They want it and are doing everything they can for it,” Zelensky said, according to a translation. “But if we are attacked — if someone attempts to take away our land, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children — we will defend ourselves. We won’t attack but defend ourselves. By attacking, you will see our faces — not our backs but our faces.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday that Russia is “ready to go” and that its forces could “attack at any time.”
A senior defense official told reporters Wednesday that Russia has “significant offensive missile capability to offensive ground power,” adding that Putin “has more than two dozen warships in the Black Sea. The majority of them are surface combatants. He has a cruise missile capability. He’s got ballistic missile capability arrayed. He’s got armor, artillery, certainly infantries — he’s got special forces.”
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Blinken, who is President Joe Biden’s top diplomat, said there is “still an opportunity to avert a major aggression, although again, they’re in their final stages of being able to engage in one.”
He added, “We said very clearly that if Russia continues to escalate, so will we. And so they have to factor that into what they’re thinking. At the end of the day, if that doesn’t stop President Putin, we’ve made very clear along with all of our allies and partners that there will be massive consequences going forward — a price that Russia will have to pay for a long, long time.”
Biden reimposed the sanctions Wednesday as a punitive measure against Russia for authorizing troops to enter separatist-backed regions in Ukraine. Germany also suspended the certification of the pipeline in response to Russia’s hostile actions. Suspension of the pipeline comes at a time when Germany and other European nations are experiencing an energy crisis. An estimated 40% of Europe’s energy comes from Russian natural gas.
The sanctions against the pipeline coincided with other sanctions that the U.S. and Europe imposed on Russia in response to Putin’s actions. This includes sanctions that target Putin’s inner circle.
