The United States stepped up warnings of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite Moscow’s continued denials and announcements of troop withdrawals from near the border.
Adding to the already fierce tensions, Ukraine and Moscow-backed separatists traded accusations of intensifying shell fire across their frontline.
The threat of an invasion is “very high, because they have not moved any of their troops out. They’ve moved more troops in,” US President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House.
“Every indication we have is that they’re prepared to go into Ukraine,” he said, accusing Moscow of preparing a “false flag operation” as a pretext to invade.
“My sense is it will happen in the next several days,” Biden said.
At the United Nations, where the Security Council was set for a heated meeting on the crisis, the US envoy said Washington wanted to make clear that risk of a war in Europe was growing.
“Our goal is to convey the gravity of the situation. The evidence on the ground is that Russia is moving toward an imminent invasion. This is a crucial moment,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield tweeted ahead of the meeting.
– ‘Forced to respond’ –
Russia meanwhile responded to previous US security proposals aimed at defusing the crisis, insisting it was not planning any invasion but making clear that it felt its key demands were being ignored.
Russia also expelled the number two US diplomat in Moscow, the US State Department said, condemning what it called an “unprovoked” action.
Ukraine has been in conflict with Moscow-backed rebels in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions since 2014, in a war that has cost thousands of lives
The Ukrainian army accused Russian-backed separatists of 34 ceasefire breaches on Thursday, 28 of them using heavy weapons.
It said that two Ukrainian soldiers and five civilians had been injured, including three adults wounded by artillery fire that hit a kindergarten in the village of Stanytsia-Luganska while children were inside.
“The shelling of a kindergarten… by pro-Russian forces is a big provocation,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter.
Russian news agencies meanwhile quoted authorities in the separatist Lugansk region saying they blamed Kyiv after the situation on the frontline “escalated significantly”.
