The White House said its warnings of Russian aggression were justified as Moscow masses military forces within striking distance of Ukraine’s capital and along its borders.
“It’s not just words,” Psaki told reporters on Monday. “You are seeing specifics that we’ve been laying out here … with more troops and weaponry on the way. They’ve also been surging troops into Belarus.”
Nearly 5,000 Russian soldiers are positioned in Belarus, with more expected in the coming weeks, Psaki said. Belarus borders Ukraine to the north, about two hours from Kyiv. Russia has already moved about 100,000 soldiers to Ukraine’s eastern border.
“It’s dangerous. We’ve been saying for more than a week that Russia could invade at any time,” Psaki said.
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The accumulation of forces has prompted fears of an attack, even as Ukraine urges Washington to tone down its rhetoric.
“There are signals even from respected leaders of states — they just say that tomorrow there will be war. This is panic. How much does it cost for our state?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a press conference last week.
Psaki on Monday disputed Kyiv’s claim of alarmism, telling reporters that the White House’s effort was intended to hammer home the “seriousness of this threat,” as well as to make “clear to the Russians what the consequences [of an invasion] will be.”
“I can’t speak to the motivation or the reasoning for the comments of Ukrainian leadership,” Psaki said, but she added that European allies share Washington’s intelligence assessments.
The Biden administration has warned that the threats of a Russian attack against Ukraine appear to be growing.
“These are combat forces and special forces prepared to conduct offensive actions into Ukraine,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in remarks at the United Nations Security Council, calling this the largest mobilization of troops in Europe in years.
Washington expects the Kremlin to increase the number of troops on the Belarus-Ukraine border to more than 30,000 by early February, she added.
She said Moscow is attempting “to paint Ukraine and Western countries as the aggressors to fabricate a pretext for attack.”
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Russia has denied the threat while demanding security concessions from the United States and NATO, including an assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO.
