Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks again by phone this Saturday (02.12.2022) with his American counterparts, Joe Biden, and French, Emmanuel Macron, between warnings from Washington that a war in Ukraine could break out “at any time” .
Fearing an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, phones are ringing off the hook on both sides of the Atlantic in an attempt to revive diplomatic channels.
Biden, who is spending the weekend at the Camp David residence, will speak with Putin on Saturday after their respective chiefs of staff had a conversation on Friday.
A call is also planned on Saturday between Putin and Macron.
“We continue to see signs of Russian escalation, including the arrival of new forces on the border with Ukraine,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned after a virtual meeting between Biden and his top Western counterparts.
“An invasion could happen at any time if Vladimir Putin gives the order,” he added, saying it could even “start during the Olympics” in Beijing, which ends on February 20.
According to Sullivan, such an offensive is a “very, very real possibility,” but US intelligence does not know whether the Russian president “has made a final decision” or not.
“No one knows whether the decision to act has been made,” confirmed a NATO diplomat.
Biden’s adviser insisted that the West was “prepared for all scenarios”: unprecedented economic retaliation in the event of war, but also a diplomatic hand to continue negotiating with Moscow.
The Pentagon will send an additional 3,000 US troops to Poland “in the coming days” to “reassure NATO allies.”
And the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, assured his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, on Friday that the country has the “strong support” of the United States.
Several rounds of talks in recent days have failed to defuse the crisis, triggered by the deployment of more than 100,000 heavily armed Russian troops to Ukraine’s border in recent months.
Quick and drastic sanctions on Russia
“Allies are determined to jointly adopt swift and drastic sanctions against Russia” in the event of an attack, tweeted a spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is due to travel to Moscow early next week.
Like Paris, Berlin insisted on the “diplomatic” path to move towards a “de-escalation”.
The White House highlighted the “remarkable” unity of the West in the face of what it considers the most dangerous moment for Europe since the end of the Cold War 30 years ago.
The Americans, who shared their intelligence analysis with their allies, outlined a dramatic scenario in the event of a Russian offensive. It would probably “start with aerial bombardment and missile strikes that obviously could kill civilians,” Sullivan said, and also “a quick assault” on Kiev.
The United States, Canada and Australia have asked their citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible.
“This is a very dangerous situation, and for your own safety you should try to get out of Ukraine. The situation will become very volatile if there is a conflict,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned his citizens on Saturday.
The Kremlin said on Friday that talks in Berlin the previous day between representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France had yielded “no results”.
These meetings focused on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has pitted Russian-backed separatists against the Ukrainian military since 2014 and has left more than 14,000 dead.
Moscow, which already annexed Crimea in 2014, denies that it wants to attack Ukraine, but conditions any de-escalation to a series of requirements, including that the neighboring country be banned from joining NATO, an unacceptable point for the West.
Despite the fact that Macron assured on Monday that he had obtained a commitment from Putin not to fuel a new escalation, Russia announced on Friday new military maneuvers on the Ukrainian border. The Russian navy is also carrying out maneuvers in the Black Sea, which borders Ukraine.