Russia can launch attack on Ukraine 'at any time', situation 'extremely dangerous': Psaki

After the intensive week of diplomatic talks between NATO-Russia Council, and the OSCE held in multiple formats in Geneva and Brussels separately yielded no positive outcomes, the White House Press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday warned, “We’re now at a stage [in the Russia-Ukraine conflict] where Moscow could at any point launch an attack on Kyiv.” Addressing the press during a briefing, Biden’s press Secretary rang alarm regarding the Russian invasion threat as she labelled the situation as “extremely dangerous,” adding that the language of Washington “is starker than we have been.” 

“Our view is this is an extremely dangerous situation,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a news briefing. “We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine.”

A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea. Russia has concentrated an estimated 100,000 troops with tanks and other heavy weapons near Ukraine in what the West fears could be a prelude to an invasion. [Credit:AP]

[Credit:AP]

Psaki warns of 'extremely dangerous situation;'

Psaki's remarks came in the backdrop of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s urgent visit to Geneva to meet with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday amidst the tense hostilities between Kyiv and Moscow as more than 100,000 Russian soldiers that were concentrated on the frontier with Moscow were now being mobilised to Belarus.

A senior State Department official informed Politico that the US and European officials have ramped up diplomatic and economic pressure on Kremlin to defuse tensions and Blinken, who made a phone call to his Russian counterpart Lavrov has now headed for visits to Ukraine and Germany after an in-person dialogue with Moscow’s officials.

The meeting comes just days after Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, threatened that his government was going to halt the controversial Russia-Germany Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline in response to the Russian invasion of Kyiv. 

A Russian tank T-72B3 fires as troops take part in drills at the Kadamovskiy firing range in the Rostov region in southern Russia. The failure of last week's high-stakes diplomatic meetings to resolve escalating tensions over Ukraine has put Russia, the United States and its European allies in uncharted post-Cold War territory. [Credit: AP]

Moscow is preparing to conduct joint military manoeuvres with Belarus in February as tensions on the border with Ukraine remain at an all-time high. Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Putin, has been a strong dissident of eastern NATO member states. In a speech after a meeting with Belarusian military officials on January 17, Lukashenka said that the exact dates of the Russia-Belarus military drills have not yet been determined, nor did he specify the troop figures that will be involved.

Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council, Alyaksandr Volfavich, later told the BelTA news agency that Russian military forces and hardware had already begun arriving in the country days ago as tensions between the West and Moscow simmered over Ukraine. 

Russia may invade Kyiv from Belarus, Kyiv's military resources 'not sufficient ': US intel

Washington believes that Russia will use the joint military exercise inside Belarus as a cover to launch an offensive for invasion of Kyiv, hundreds of thousands of troops that will include the Belarusian Army. A senior US State Department official had told Axios that new deployments to the Belarus-Ukraine border have been encircling Ukraine from the north, east, and south, and strategically it has opened a new military front less than 100 miles from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, the US military intelligence suggests. Russian troops will be positioned close to the borders of NATO members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. 

"And so it is incredibly important that when we see these kinds of movements and when there is a concrete change in capabilities, that we acknowledge it and call it for what it is,” the senior US official who spoke on condition of anonymity, stressed.

"What I know about the Kremlin and what I know about President Putin is that he is an opportunist and he creates opportunities," the official reiterated. "We know that Putin doesn't give that support for free. It's clear Russia is preying on Lukashenko's vulnerability, and he is calling in some of those accumulated IOUs,” he furthermore, added.

Ukraine and Russia have been involved in a war since Russia’s annexation of Crimea as Ukrainian soldiers have been fighting Kremlin-backed separatists in the highly volatile Donbas region. The conflict that has killed more than 13,200 people since April 2014.

On the 30th anniversary of the founding of Ukraine’s armed forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky was spotted donning a helmet and flak jacket and touring the combat trenches where Kyiv had engaged new tanks, armoured vehicles, and warships to the frontline units, according to the satellite imageries shared by Associated Press. Gen. Kyrylo O. Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, meanwhile, had told The New York Times on-ground correspondent that there are “not sufficient military resources for repelling a full-scale attack by Russia if it begins without the support of Western forces.”

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian National Guard Press Office Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly, right, greets Ukrainian soldiers during her visit to the National Guard base close to Kyiv. [Credit: AP]

Sending US troops to Kyiv 'not on the cards': Biden 

Biden administration had earlier asserted that the US will not unilaterally send troops to Ukraine just a day after the US president met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies," he had said, noting that obligation did not extend to Ukraine in terms of military support. “The idea that the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now," Biden had said. 

In this photo provided by Ukrainian National Guard Press Office Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly, second from right, listens to a Canadian instructor's report during her visit to the National Guard base close to Kyiv, Ukraine. [Credit: AP]

Separately, an investigative report had unveiled that Ukraine had mobilized the civilians to an abandoned Soviet-era asphalt plant to train them of combat readiness if the enemy Russia invaded. Ukraine has been training dozens of civilians that have been moved to the army reserves for military training to counter the large-scale ‘multi-front’ offensive on Kyiv. Last month, satellite imagery showed Ukrainian soldiers building a bunker on the front line in Zolote, and heavy military movement was seen among the Ukrainian soldiers in a trench at the line of separation near Sentianivka, Luhansk region, which is controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.