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The White House has again sounded the alarm on a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying that could involve a rapid military assault on Kiev, which is the seat of the Ukrainian government and the most populous city in the country with nearly 3 million people.
“We’ve been clear that it could take a range of different forms, but I want to be equally clear that one of those forms is a rapid assault on the city of Kiev,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at a briefing on Friday.
“That is a possible line of attack, course of action, that the Russian forces could choose to take. They could also choose to move to other parts of Ukraine as well,” Sullivan said.
Russia has rejected the US allegations that it is preparing to invade Ukraine, and has urged Washington to abstain from spreading rumors on the tensions between Moscow and Kiev.
The White House official also acknowledged that the US has not determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a final decision to invade Ukraine, but said intelligence indicates Moscow has accumulated enough forces at the Ukrainian border that an invasion could happen before the Winter Olympics conclude on Feb. 20.
“It could be more limited, it could be more expansive, but there are very real possibilities that it will involve the seizure of a significant amount of territory in Ukraine and the seizure of major cities, including the capital city,” Sullivan said when asked about the potential course of a military invasion.
“I’m not going to get into intelligence information, but if you look at the disposition of intelligence forces … the Russians are in a position to be able to mount a major military action in Ukraine any day, and for that reason we believe that it is important for us to communicate to our allies and partners, to the Ukrainians and to the American citizens who are still there,” Sullivan said.
“I want to be clear though: We are not saying a final decision has been taken by President Putin,” he continued. “What we are saying is we have a sufficient level of concern based on what we have seen on the ground and what our intelligence analysts have picked up that we are sending this clear message.”
Sullivan’s comments echoed those of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said earlier Friday that a Russian invasion against Ukraine “could begin at any time.”
“Simply put, we continue to see very troubling signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border,” Blinken told reporters during a news conference in Melbourne on Friday following meetings with his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan.
“And as we’ve said before, we’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time. And to be clear, that includes during the Olympics,” Blinken added.
This comes in an environment of massively heightened tensions, an intensive anti-Russian propaganda campaign by Washington, and deployment of forces and equipment throughout most of the former Warsaw Pact nations and three former Soviet republics that have joined NATO, with at least two others (Georgia and Ukraine) not yet admitted as formal members but who are involved in military cooperation, including hosting military assets, with the US and NATO.
Biden administration officials claimed Russia has assembled 110,000 troops along its border with Ukraine and is preparing for a “large-scale” invasion of the country, as the Biden administration keeps sending troops to eastern Europe to increase NATO military buildup there.
Last week, The Washington Post, citing a US military and intelligence assessment, reported that “Russia could seize Kyiv in days and cause 50,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine.”
Russia has called the US intelligence assessment of a possible invasion of Ukraine “madness and scaremongering.”
