Biden says Putin WILL invade within days as Russian battle unit arrives minutes from border: Blast ‘rips through gas pipeline’ near Russian separatist city in eastern Ukraine after ‘false flag’ car bomb and mass evacuation of 700,000 Russian civilians.
President Joe Biden for the first time on Friday said he believed President Vladimir Putin had made up his mind to invade Ukraine.
He delivered his verdict at the end of an intense week of diplomacy and amid reports of explosions in territory held by pro-Russian separatists which officials believe could be false-flag attacks and a precursor to an invasion.
After delivering an update on the crisis, Biden was asked if Putin had made up his mind.
‘As of this moment, I’m convinced he’s made the decision,’ he told reporters at the White House. ‘We have reason to believe that.’
He said it was based on Washington’s ‘significant intelligence capability.’
But he insisted Putin could change course if he wanted to.
‘Russia can still choose diplomacy,’ he said. ‘It is not too late to deescalate and return to the negotiating table.’
His revelation came amid another day of high drama as Russia appeared to step up its preparations for war.
Pro-Russian rebels began evacuating civilians from their territory in eastern Ukraine.
Hours after the operation began a car-bomb exploded in their capital Donetsk, followed by a second explosion later in the evening in Luhansk – triggering warnings that these might be the ‘false flag’ operations that would precede an invasion.
Latest US assessments say there are now 190,000 Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border.
That includes a battle group deployment of tanks, personnel carriers and support equipment at Millerovo Airfield, 16 miles from the Ukraine border, according to new satellite photos.
Meanwhile, the US and UK both said Russia was behind a distributed denial of service attack that knocked Ukrainian banking and government websites offline.
Taken together the events track with what officials said amounted to Russia’s invasion playbook.
Biden responded by dismissing the mounting volume of propaganda coming from Russia and its separatist rebels, saying there was no truth to reports of a genocide unfolding in the Donbass – the disputed area of East Ukraine – or that Ukrainian troops had shelled a kindergarten.
Biden called out reports of a Ukrainian genocide and that its troops had shelled a kindergarten as propaganda.
‘We also continue to see more and more disinformation being pushed out to the Russian public, including Russian backed separatists claiming that Ukraine is planning to launch a massive offensive attack in the Donbass,’ he said.
‘Well, look, there is simply no evidence to these assertions and it defies basic logic to believe the Ukrainians would choose this moment, with well over 150,000 troops arrayed on his borders to escalate a year long conflict.’
Just before Biden began speaking the Russian Interfax news agency reported that ‘a powerful explosion’ struck a gas line in Ukraine’s breakaway region of the People’s Republic of Luhansk.
Pro-Russian rebels were quick to claim it was the work of Ukrainian forces.
It followed earlier reports in the Russian media that the first explosion was a car bomb intended to assassinate a top Russian separatist official – who was unhurt.
Western intelligence agencies have long been warning of a Russian ‘false flag’ operation that could involve a staged attack on Putin’s separatist allies to provide a pretext for the Kremlin to send its forces into Ukraine.
The car bomb exploded late Friday near the headquarters of the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic, destroying a Soviet-era UAZ jeep that belonged to Denis Sinenkov, head of regional security. He was not reported to be injured.
Russian state media were the first to report on the explosion and picture the bomb site, with a notorious Russian ‘journalist’ – thought to be a state propagandist – among the first to arrive on the scene.
Just an hour before the blast, the pro-Russian heads of the People’s Republic of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic ordered women, children and the elderly to evacuate immediately ahead of what they claimed would be a Ukrainian invasion. They said they were evacuating 700,000 people.
Kiev categorically denied any plans to attack.
A US State Department spokesperson said that reported evacuations in eastern Ukraine and a car bombing in the city of Donetsk ‘are further attempts to obscure through lies and disinformation that Russia is the aggressor in this conflict.’
They went on to say it was ‘cynical and cruel to use human beings as pawns to distract the world from the fact that Russia is building up its forces in preparation for an attack’.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered the Russian government to house and feed people leaving two self-proclaimed east Ukrainian breakaway republics once they arrived in southern Russia.
He also ordered every person who arrived from Donbass to be given a payment of 10,000 roubles ($129).
Ukraine on Friday called on the international community to condemn what it said were provocations by Russia in separatist-held eastern Ukrainian areas, saying that Moscow would only escalate the situation further if it did not.
‘…we are watching the Russian Federation launch a campaign to spread mass disinformation, increase shelling of Ukrainian positions and civilian infrastructure with weapons banned by the Minsk agreements, and escalate the security situation,’ the foreign ministry’s spokesman said in a statement.
‘Lack of a proper reaction or a neutral position will only fuel the escalation of the situation by Russia.’
There are now thought to be up to 190,000 Russian soldiers backed by tanks, artillery, helicopters, fighter jets and missile batteries within reaching distance of Ukraine as Putin prepares to personally oversee nuclear missile drills that will take place tomorrow.
Share your thoughts