Biden admin back to describing Russian invasion of Ukraine as ‘imminent’
The Biden administration reverted to describing a Russian invasion of Ukraine as “imminent” on Thursday, weeks after saying the word sent the wrong message about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions.
“The evidence on the ground is that Russia is moving toward an imminent invasion. This is a crucial moment,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfieldtold reporters ahead of a morning Security Council meeting.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will deliver remarks at the meeting in a last-minute addition to his schedule before he travels on to Munich for a major security conference this weekend.
Thomas-Greenfield tweeted she had asked Blinken personally to swing by the UN before his departure.
“Our goal is to convey the gravity of the situation … Today’s Council meeting should not distract us from that,” she tweeted. “It should focus on what is happening right now in Ukraine.”
The Security Council meeting will begin hours after a US official alleged that Russia secretly added 7,000 troops near Ukraine’s border despite Putin claiming this week that he would be drawing back forces.
“Yesterday the Russian government said it was withdrawing troops from the border with Ukraine. They received a lot of attention for that claim, both here and around the world. But we now know it was false,” the official said on a press call previewing Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to Munich.
“In fact, we have now confirmed that in the last several days, Russia has increased its troop presence along Ukrainian border by as many as 7,000 troops with some arriving as recently as today,” they added. “Every indication we have now is they mean only to publicly offer to talk and make claims about de-escalation while privately mobilizing for war.”
The US estimates that Russia has massed roughly 150,000 forces around Ukrainian territory.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration repeatedly described an invasion as “imminent,” but switched up the language at the beginning of February to avoid sending the wrong message.
“We stopped using it because I think it sent a message that we weren’t intending to send, which was that we knew President Putin had made a decision [about invading],” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Feb. 2.
“I would say the vast majority of times I’ve talked about it and said he could invade at any time, that’s true,” she added. “We still don’t know that he’s made a decision.”
A day earlier, Thomas-Greenfield had told National Public Radio that she “would not say that we are arguing that it’s imminent, because we are still pursuing a diplomatic solution to give the Russians an off-ramp.
“Our hope is that this will work, and that Putin will understand that war and confrontation is not the path that he wants to follow, but he wants to take a path of diplomacy,” she added.
https://nypost.com/2022/02/17/us-back-to-calling-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-as-imminent/
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