Russian invasion of Ukraine imminent, says US

MOSCOW/KYIV • US President Joe Biden said yesterday there was now "every indication" that Russia was planning to go into Ukraine, including signs that Moscow was preparing a "false flag" operation to justify it.

Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists within Ukraine earlier yesterday exchanged fire across a front line that divides them, in what Western officials described as a possible pretext created by Moscow to invade.

Mr Biden ordered Secretary of State Antony Blinken to change his travel plans at the last minute to speak at a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

"The evidence on the ground is that Russia is moving towards an imminent invasion. This is a crucial moment," US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters.

Russia denies planning to invade its neighbour, and said this week it was pulling back some of the more than 100,000 troops it had massed near the frontier. Washington says Russia is not withdrawing, but in fact sending more forces.

"We see them fly in more combat and support aircraft. We see them sharpen their readiness in the Black Sea," US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said at Nato headquarters in Brussels. "We even see them stocking up their blood supplies."

"I was a soldier myself not that long ago. I know first-hand that you don't do these sorts of things for no reason," said Mr Austin, a retired army general. "And you certainly don't do them if you are getting ready to pack up and go home."

The Russian Defence Ministry said yesterday that troops had redeployed hundreds of kilometres away from the Ukrainian border after conducting military exercises.

The ministry's spokesman, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, said that logistics units of the western military district had travelled more than 640km from the Kursk region, bordering Ukraine, and returned to their base in the town of Dzerzhinsk in central Russia.

Several other military groups travelled more than 1,450km by railway with their equipment and were redeployed to Chechnya and Dagestan, he said.

The troops currently engaged in military exercises in Belarus, to Ukraine's north, will also return to their home bases once the drills are over, Maj-Gen Konashenkov said in a statement.

Russia formally notified the United States yesterday that it would be forced to respond, including using "military-technical" measures, if Washington did not negotiate legally binding security guarantees for Moscow.

A copy of Russia's written responses to US proposals on security was published by the Tass news agency. In it, Moscow said that Russia's red lines were being ignored, and it was alarmed by growing US and Nato military activity near Russia.

Defence sources say the "military-technical" response, which President Vladimir Putin first spoke of in December, could include missile and troop deployments, electronic warfare and even the use of space-based weapons.

Yesterday, Russia also expelled the US deputy chief of mission in Moscow, Mr Bart Gorman, which the US State Department said was an unprovoked move. The US is considering its response, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels gave conflicting accounts of shelling across the front in the Donbass separatist region. The details could not be established independently, but reports from both sides suggested an incident more serious than the routine ceasefire violations reported regularly in the area.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was "seriously concerned" about reports of an escalation.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said pro-Russian forces had shelled a kindergarten, in what he called a "big provocation".

REUTERS, NYTIMES