At a major security conference in Munich, Vice President Harris warned of far-reaching sanctions against Russia and its allies in the event of an invasion. Her comments came after President Biden said Friday that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, has “made the decision” to strike Ukraine, as his administration warned of Kremlin-orchestrated false-flag operations in the coming days. U.S. officials worry that these could be used as a pretext for an attack.
Hours after Biden’s remarks, leaders of two breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine on Saturday signed mass military mobilization decrees that put them on war footing.
Biden in his speech said that disinformation was being pushed to the Russian public that Ukraine was preparing a major offensive — even as Russia has probably massed as many as 190,000 troops in and around Ukraine and now has all the pieces in place for an invasion, according to U.S. officials.
Here’s what to know
- Belarusian military officials said Russian troops deployed to the country for joint drills may stay there past the official end of the exercise on Sunday. Their presence has increased fears about the Russian military surrounding Ukraine from a number of strategic positions.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday traveled to the Munich Security Conference. He plans to return to Kyiv the same day. In Munich, Zelensky met with Vice President Harris, who assured him that “the United States stands with Ukraine.”
- The United States asserted on Friday that Russia has probably massed as many as 190,000 troops in and around Ukraine, or nearly double that of the 100,000 estimated in late January.
- President Vladimir Putin oversaw a major military exercise on Saturday of Russia’s nuclear forces, involving the launch of a series of hypersonic missiles. He was accompanied by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
UNDERSTANDING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CRISIS
Ukraine’s Lviv becomes ‘western capital’ as diplomats leave Kyiv
By David L. Stern10:15 a.m.
LVIV, Ukraine — There are winding cobblestone streets and delicious pastries. The old Habsburg elegance still runs through Lviv.
Lviv is also about as far from Russia as you can get in Ukraine. These days, that makes it a preferred place for some to set up shop amid growing fears that Russia could attack — and possibly put the capital, Kyiv, in its crosshairs.
At least five embassies, including that of the United States, have moved a part of their operations to Lviv, about 350 miles west of Kyiv and within a short drive to the Polish border.
European officials say they have not seen intelligence that Putin has decided to attack Ukraine
MUNICH — President Biden said Friday that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had “made the decision” to strike Ukraine — an assessment that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday that he agreed with.
However, high-level European officials said Saturday that they had not been given any direct intelligence or evidence of Putin having made up his mind to attack. “Let me say clearly that at this stage, we do not have such clear intelligence,” one European official told The Washington Post, adding that “it is also clear that the situation is very serious.”
Another European official said, “We have no clear evidence ourselves that Putin has made up his mind, and we have not seen anything that would suggest otherwise,” adding that they believed such strong statements could be part of a U.S. tactic to increase pressure on Russia.
Meanwhile, a German security official said they had seen an increase in Russian cyberattacks and attempts to spread false information in recent weeks.
All three officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Harris, Blinken navigate Munich Security Conference as Europe holds its breath
MUNICH, Germany — When Vice President Harris met with the heads of Baltic nations here on Friday, she made a vow that was equal parts American might and personal promise.
“We stand with you — I am here personally to say that,” she told the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, who had just recounted how the Russian threat triggered traumatic memories of Soviet occupation. “We stand with you on this and many other issues, in the spirit of our alliance and our mutual interest and priorities.”
Nearby, at Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Secretary of State Antony Blinken found it hard to navigate the narrow corridors as foreign ministers, prime ministers and other longtime acquaintances intercepted his path with handshakes, hugs or an oft-repeated “Hey, Tony!”
The split screen brought into sharp relief the complex dynamic at the conference as Harris, the senior official and head of the U.S. delegation, shares a double-billing with Blinken, who has known many of the foreign officials here for decades.
The White House says their roles are complementary, that Harris is in Munich to provide leadership and inspiration while Blinken handles the private talks and diplomatic minutiae. But some U.S. diplomats say it’s not that simple.
Shelling in separatist region prompts unease, shrugs
STANYTSIA LUHANSKA, Ukraine — Distant thuds of shelling could be heard at a crossing between Ukraine and the separatist-controlled Luhansk territory Saturday — artillery fire that offered another indication of an escalation in fighting and tension between Ukraine’s government forces and the pro-Russian militants.
Most people didn’t react, either walking to the checkpoint to enter the self-proclaimed Luhansk republic or coming back from there. Oleksandr, whose sister lives in the Luhansk territory, spent a week there before returning to the Kyiv-controlled side on Saturday morning. He said he didn’t witness a mass evacuation of people, as both the Luhansk and Donetsk territories declared on Friday night.
But there were long lines at gas stations and crowds of people stocking up on supplies in stores.
“My sister is still there and my niece, so how can I not worry?” said Oleksandr, who, like others, declined to give his surname for fear of separatist reprisals on his family. “I don’t want to believe that this is the start of an escalation,” he added.
The Ukrainian military has reported a tenfold increase in shelling in the past three days, accusing separatists of using weapons banned in previous agreements. One Ukrainian soldier was killed in a recent strike.
One woman who was returning from the separatist region said it was “calm and quiet” there, and she didn’t hear any shelling. Another, Emma, whose parents live in the self-proclaimed republic, said they heard the announcement about an evacuation but didn’t plan on leaving the area.
“But people are afraid,” she said.
The traffic of people going there and coming back continued, despite the occasional sounds of shelling in the background. They’ve grown used to the booms of this eight-year conflict. They just hope something more menacing isn’t looming.
Zelensky says Ukraine will not ‘respond to provocations’ near borders
Ukraine will not respond to provocations near its borders, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday, as artillery fire escalated along a front line with pro-Russian separatists in the disputed eastern Donbas region.
He made the comments shortly after landing in Munich to meet with Vice President Harris and other Western leaders. “We do not respond to provocations and strive to establish peace exclusively through diplomacy,” Zelensky wrote in an Instagram post.
The contact line that divides government troops from pro-Russian separatist troops in eastern Ukraine has seen a sharp rise in cease-fire violations in recent days, according to European monitors.
The Ukrainian leader said he would fly back from the Munich security conference later Saturday.
Russian forces currently in Belarus could stay after joint drills complete
By Mary Ilyushina8:39 a.m.
OBUZ-LESNOVSKY, Belarus — Belarusian military officials said that Russian Armed Forces deployed to the country for joint drills may stay in Belarus past the official end of the exercise on Sunday, further increasing fears about the Russian military surrounding Ukraine from several strategic points.
“No one said that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow the Russian military will return to the Russian Federation,” Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Alexander Volfovich said on the sidelines of the drill at Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground, about 90 miles from the Ukrainian border. “The exercise end tomorrow, but the snap check of forces continues. For how long — that will be determined by the commanders in chief.”
The exercise, called Allied Resolve 2022, is taking place simultaneously with the massive check of Russia’s strategic forces that is being personally overseen by President Vladimir Putin and his ally Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
The Ukrainian military attache, who observed the exercise, told The Washington Post that Ukraine hopes to return to friendly relations with Belarus and avoid a situation when “exercises slip into a war scenario.”
The joint forces were practicing a counteroffensive using Russian aviation and joint ground forces after repelling an attack from several mock enemies, according to the official scenario of the exercise. The hypothetical rivals dubbed “the Western” states resemble Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine.
Harris warns of ‘swift and severe’ economic consequences if Russia invades Ukraine
MUNICH — Delivering the keynote speech at the Munich Security Conference at one of Europe’s tensest moments since the Cold War, Vice President Harris said Russia would see “economic measures that will be swift and severe” if it invades neighboring Ukraine.
“There is a playbook of Russian aggression,” Harris told the heads of state and government, foreign dignitaries and a large delegation from the United States. “And this playbook is too familiar for us all. Russia will plead ignorance and innocence. It will create a false pretext for invasion. And it will amass troops and firepower in plain sight.”
She said the U.S. sanctions also would target “those who aid and abet the unprovoked invasion.”
During the conference, Harris has stressed White House talking points that the United States and its NATO allies are open to diplomacy even with Russia on the brink of invasion but also are ready to deploy sanctions and other measures if Russian aggression continues.
She also encouraged allies to have faith in their unity to blunt and respond to aggression. “I am reassured and heartened,” she said, noting that many of the nations represented in the room “came together and are now speaking with a unified voice.”
Putin oversees ‘massive’ nuclear exercise designed to show military strength
MOSCOW — Russia launched a series of hypersonic missiles Saturday as part of an exercise of nuclear forces overseen by President Vladimir Putin in a show of military strength to reinforce his demands to rewrite the rules of European security in Moscow’s favor.
The none-too-subtle reminder to Western leaders of Russia’s status as a nuclear power comes as the Biden administration grapples with the most serious crisis in NATO-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War, amid warnings that Putin appears poised to invade Ukraine.
Russian Aerospace Forces launched Kinzhal hypersonic missiles as part of a strategic deterrence exercise, the Kremlin website reported, showing images of Putin and his close ally Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko seated in the Russian Defense Ministry in a video link with Russian military commanders.
Submarines and warships of the Northern Fleet and Black Sea Fleet launched Tsirkon hypersonic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles, according to the Kremlin. Russia conducted the “massive” drill of nuclear weapons to show it could inflict guaranteed defeat on an enemy, Russian military commander Valery Gerasimov told Putin in comments reported by Interfax news agency.
Russia, demanding a permanent bar on Ukraine joining NATO, claims Kyiv’s goal of joining the alliance is the sharpest threat to its security. Moscow wants an end to NATO’s open-door policy and the removal of NATO forces and equipment from Eastern Europe, demands that would reshape Europe’s post-Cold War security.
Putin on Friday repeated Moscow’s unhappiness with NATO’s rejection of his key demands, indicating that while Russia was willing to pursue diplomacy, it would do so only if Washington and NATO were willing to negotiate seriously on these core demands.
‘False flag’ operation accusations have defined Putin’s career.
More than two decades ago, a series of deadly apartment bombings, purportedly by separatists, drew Russian troops into war. Then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s popularity surged in the wake of his response to the terrorist attacks. He soon became Russia’s president.
In the many years since 1999, allegations have lingered that the attacks on Russian civilians were actually a “false flag” carried out by forces loyal to Putin, blamed on Chechen militants to ensure his grip on power. For many in the Russian opposition, the apartment bombings were to Putin’s Russia what the Reichstag fire was for Nazi Germany.
Such accusations marked the start of a trend. From Chechnya to Ukraine, from terrorist attacks to cyberattacks, Putin’s Russia has been accused time and again of secretly carrying out acts that it blamed on others. The broader aim, some experts and former U.S. officials say, is to create confusion with dueling narratives.
‘Uncoiling’ Russian forces are poised to strike, Austin says
KYIV, Ukraine — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday said Russian forces have advanced essentially every capability needed to invade Ukraine, but he said there are still pathways to avoid a bloody conflict.
“They’re uncoiling and are now poised to strike,” Austin said of the estimated 130,000 forces on the Russian and Belarusian borders with Ukraine. Austin agreed with President Biden’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had made up his mind about whether to invade, and said elements other than ground fighting units needed for such a move — logistics, aviation, field hospitals and command and control units — were in position.
But the invasion is still not a certainty, and “Mr. Putin can take a different path,” he said in a joint news conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, with Gabrielius Landsbergis, that nation’s acting minister of national defense.
Landsbergis said he and Austin had discussed the potential for a permanent presence of U.S. troops in Lithuania to shore up NATO’s eastern flank and reassure allies. Hundreds of U.S. troops are in the country in a rotational presence and train with their Lithuanian partners.
Landsbergis said Western responses to Russia’s previous incursions, in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, may have demonstrated to Putin that he can push farther into neighboring countries. That has created alarm in the Baltics, Landsbergis said.
“Who’s next?” He asked. “Who could be the next target?”
U.N. says humanitarian convoy caught in Friday crossfire in eastern Ukraine
A United Nations convoy was caught in crossfire on Friday as it passed through disputed territories in eastern Ukraine where a front line with pro-Russian separatists has seen a surge in shelling.
“We can confirm that a U.N. humanitarian convoy of twelve trucks was caught in crossfire during the ‘contact line’ crossing. We can also confirm that the U.N. convoy was not targeted,” Victoria Andrievska, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR in Ukraine, told The Washington Post by email on Saturday.
The fleet of vehicles and the people accompanying it crossed safely, she said. “However, this incident demonstrates the continued volatility of the situation … and the risks civilians face daily … since 2014.”
Ukraine’s army commander accused pro-Russian forces of firing near a checkpoint in the contested Luhansk region, according to the country’s national news agency Ukrinform, which said there were no casualties in the incident. European monitors say they have observed “a dramatic increase” in cease-fire violations along the front line.
The leaders of two breakaway territories in the east, including in Luhansk, announced a military mobilization Saturday, blaming “Kyiv’s aggression.” Washington has accused Russia of pushing claims that Kyiv could be about to attack as an attempt to build a pretext for a Russian invasion, while Moscow has denied any plans to attack.
E.U. chief says Russia’s intimidation of Ukraine threatens ‘entire international order’
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Russia’s attempts to intimidate Ukraine threaten the “entire international order” and seek to deny a free country its right to self-determination.
“The world has been watching in disbelief as we face the largest build-up of troops on European soil since the darkest days of the Cold War,” the top E.U. official said Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. She accused Russia of acting in bad faith by amassing more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border while citing its opposition to Kyiv’s NATO membership, saying the Kremlin has chosen to “instill fear and call it security demands.”
The E.U. official’s harsh criticisms of Russia stood in contrast to those of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who also addressed the conference Saturday.
The leader of Europe’s most powerful economy said Russia’s troop buildup was unjustified but said Moscow had legitimate security concerns that the West should accommodate. “We can only stop this crisis in its tracks if we negotiate,” said Scholz, who noted that the peace and security of all of Europe was “at stake.”
Scholz reiterated his view that a war over Ukraine’s entry into NATO would be absurd because there is no “decision pending” on its membership at the moment. “We are ready to negotiate,” Scholz said, “and in doing so we will of course make a distinction between untenable demands” and Russia’s legitimate concerns.
correction
A previous version of this report misspelled the name of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The article has been corrected.
Russian media reports Friday gas pipeline explosion amid warnings of false-flag attack
An explosion occurred along a gas pipeline in eastern Ukraine on Friday, according to reports from Russia-backed separatists, as concerns heightened that Russia could use a false-flag incident as a pretext for an invasion.
Two explosions in the city of Luhansk were reported by pro-Russian media channels Friday night. One hit a gas pipeline, according to RT News Channel Today, citing local media. Videos showing the explosions were circulated on separatist Telegram accounts.
Sputnik News tied the explosions to Ukrainian shelling and also quoted a local official who cited “sabotage.”
It came as President Biden, in remarks at the White House, warned that Russia was falsely blaming attacks on Ukraine as part of a disinformation campaign that could be used as a justification for an invasion.
“There is simply no evidence,” Biden said, arguing that the assertions defy “basic logic to believe the Ukrainians would choose this moment, with well over a 150,000 troops arrayed on its borders, to escalate a year-long conflict.”
Britain joins U.S. in relocating embassy away from Kyiv
The United Kingdom has relocated its embassy in Ukraine from Kyiv, the capital, to Lviv, a far-western city about 40 miles from the Polish border.
The British Foreign Office said Friday the move was temporary and due to the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. It follows similar moves by the United States and other Western nations. The U.K. ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, said as news broke of the United States evacuating its staff last week that Britain was “still here,” but Western officials have grown increasingly alarmed about the likelihood of a Russian attack.
British officials again urged its nationals to leave Ukraine, telling people who chose to remain that they should “remain vigilant throughout due to potential combat operations.”
London also moved to make it easier for the immediate family of British nationals to leave Ukraine for the United Kingdom, waiving visa fees that can cost thousands of dollars.
Washington relocated all remaining embassy personnel from Kyiv to Lviv on Monday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the move was undertaken “for one reason — the safety of our staff.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had expressed frustration over the grim warnings from U.S. officials about an imminent invasion, has criticized the relocations as a “big mistake.” Zelensky told reporters on Monday that if an invasion occurs, “it will be everywhere” and cannot be avoided by moving a five- or six-hour drive away from Kyiv.