Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden are to hold a high-stakes telephone call on Saturday as tensions over a possibility imminent invasion of Ukraine escalated sharply and the US announced plans to evacuate its embassy in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Before talking to Biden, Putin is to have a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with him in Moscow earlier in the week to try to resolve the crisis. US officials told the AP that the State Department plans to announce Saturday that virtually all American staff at the Kyiv embassy will be required to leave. The State Department wouldn't comment. The department had earlier ordered families of US Embassy staffers in Kyiv to leave, though it had left it to the discretion of nonessential personnel if they wanted to depart.
Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, urged all Americans in Ukraine to leave, emphasizing that they should not expect the US military to rescue them in the event that air and rail transportation is severed after a Russian invasion. Several NATO allies, including Britain, Canada, Norway, and Denmark, also are asking their citizens to leave Ukraine, as is non-NATO ally New Zealand. Russia has massed troops near the Ukraine border and has sent troops to exercises in neighboring Belarus, but it insistently denies that it intends to launch an offensive against Ukraine. Biden has said US troops won't enter Ukraine to contest any Russian invasion, but he has bolstered the US military presence in Europe as reassurance to allies on NATO's eastern flank. On Friday the Pentagon said Biden ordered a further 3,000 soldiers to Poland, on top of 1,700 who are on their way there.
The timing of any possible Russian military action remains a key question. The US picked up intelligence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a US official familiar with the findings. The official wouldn't say how definitive the intelligence was, and the White House publicly underscored that the US doesn't know with certainty whether Putin is committed to invasion. However, US officials said anew that Russia's buildup of offensive air, land, and sea firepower near Ukraine has reached the point where it could invade on short notice. Sullivan said Russian military action could start with missile and air attacks, followed by a ground offensive. "Yes, it is an urgent message because we are in an urgent situation," he told reporters at the White House. "Russia has all the forces it needs to conduct a major military action."
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Sullivan added: "Russia could choose, in very short order, to commence a major military action against Ukraine." He said the scale of such an invasion could range from a limited incursion to a strike on Kyiv, the capital. Russia scoffed at the US talk of urgency. "The hysteria of the White House is more indicative than ever," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. "The Anglo-Saxons need a war." Sullivan’s stark warning accelerated the projected time frame for a potential invasion, which many analysts had believed was unlikely until after the Winter Olympics in China end on Feb. 20.
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