US President Joe Biden believes that the decision has been made in the Kremlin: Putin wants to invade Ukraine. It is not too late to return to the negotiating table.
Biden told a press conference on Friday evening Dutch time what the US says it knows about the situation in and around Ukraine. “At this point, I am convinced that he has made the decision,” Biden said of Putins, drawing on work by US intelligence agencies. He also shared that tonight in a telephone conversation with allies in Europe.
Earlier, US authorities said they were unsure whether Putin had already made a decision on an attack on Ukraine as Russia has concentrated its forces on Ukraine’s borders. Those services don’t share evidence for their conclusions. The US uses warnings and revelations like this as a tool in its information war with Russia.
“We have reason to believe that Russia will plan and try to attack Ukraine in the coming weeks, coming days,” said the US president, who has warned several times with specific details about the course of such a forecast. invasion. “We believe they will target Kiev, a city of 2.8 million innocent people.”
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Biden thus tries to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine with lies and confusion as a cover. The US president is still hopeful that he can still bring Putin to the negotiating table. “It is not too late to de-escalate and return to the negotiating table,” he said. “Russia has a choice, between war and all the suffering that comes with it, and diplomacy, which will make the future safer for everyone.”
Biden says Russian-backed battle groups in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine are trying to provoke a response from the Ukrainian military. This would include the shelling of a playgroup. Biden praised the judgment and self-control of the Ukrainians.
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Biden tries to disable disinformation from the White House about an alleged attack by the Ukrainians. It all fits into the playbooks that Russia previously used to launch military action under false pretenses, Biden described. “It defies logic that Ukraine would choose just this moment, with 150,000 troops at the border, to escalate a years-old conflict.”
According to a US Department of Defense official, some 40 to 50 percent of troops on the border with Ukraine are “ready to attack.” That is a larger number than has been observed so far.
Russia has repeatedly contradicted claims that it plans to attack Ukraine in recent weeks.
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