Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he is “convinced” that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to oust Ukraine’s government led by democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Blinken, who also noted that it is “a possibility” that Russia could invade a NATO member, provided his bleak assessment of Ukraine during a Thursday evening appearance on ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir.
Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine during a speech that aired early Thursday morning, and within roughly a day, 137 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 316 injured, Zelensky announced as his country’s forces face attacks from the north, south, and east.
“Is it a possibility that Putin goes beyond Ukraine? Sure, it’s a possibility, but there’s something very powerful standing in the way of that,” Blinken said. “That’s something we call Article 5 of NATO. That means an attack on one member of NATO is an attack on all members of NATO. The president’s been very clear that we will defend every inch of NATO territory. I think that’s the most powerful deterrent against President Putin going beyond Ukraine.”
A senior defense official told reporters earlier Thursday that there have been “in total more than 160 missiles for airstrikes” in the time since Russia launched its military incursion into Ukraine.
Zelensky, in a video address to his people, claimed that he has evidence to show that Russian forces are targeting him.
“According to our information, the enemy marked me as target No. 1 — my family as target No. 2. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state. We have information that enemy sabotage groups have entered Kyiv,” he said.
Zelensky has been moved to a bunker, according to CNN. The White House declined to provide specifics about his location, though Zelensky did acknowledge that he remains in Kyiv with his central government.
Blinken’s assessment of Russia’s goal to topple the Ukrainian government is similar to the senior defense official, who told reporters, “We still believe … they have every intention of basically decapitating the government and installing their own method of governance.”
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Tensions between Ukraine and Russia escalated rapidly in recent days after Putin recognized two Russia-backed regions in eastern Ukraine as independent entities earlier this week. He also ordered “peacekeeping” troops to go into those areas at the time.
The Ukrainian government declared a state of emergency meant to stay in place for at least 30 days Wednesday. Upon declaring martial law, Zelensky banned all men ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country.
The United States, which usually has more than 80,000 troops stationed in Europe, has deployed an additional 12,000 to European allies, and 2,000 more from within Europe have been relocated, though as it stands, they will not be fighting Russians.
