Editor’s take
The highest authorities of Ukraine seem uneasy over the stepping up of the propaganda campaign of the US military and intelligence bodies regarding the imminence of a Russian invasion and its devastating impact on the people of that country.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba questioned publicly the US media reports on the issue.
And what did the US media say?
Russia has established 70 percent of the military buildup it needs to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to American officials cited anonymously in US media.
During six hours of closed meetings last week, officials were warned by senior members of the administration of President Joe Biden that among the most aggressive of possibilities is a quick capture of the capital Kyiv, according to the Washington Post and New York Times.
Although the unnamed officials said intelligence analysts did not believe that Russia’s President Vladmir Putin had made the final decision to invade, they did warn of as many as 50,000 civilian deaths and up to 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed if Russia does go ahead.
In the meantime the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Sunday that an invasion could take place at any time. “It could happen as soon as tomorrow or it could take some weeks yet,” he told NBC. “We’re in the window where something could happen. We believe the Russians have put in place the capabilities to mount a significant operation.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pro-western government is downplaying the current threat posed to Ukraine by the buildup of tens of thousands of Russian troops and military hardware at the border and in annexed Crimea.
Such bloody warnings received a nervous reaction from Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who said publicly do not believe the apocalyptic predictions on Sunday.
“Different capitals have different scenarios, but Ukraine is ready for any development. Today, Ukraine has a strong army, unprecedented international support, and Ukrainians’ faith in their country. This enemy should be afraid of us, not us,” said Kuleba.
Ukraine’s president aide Mykhailo Podolyak said on Sunday the chances of a diplomatic solution to the crisis were “substantially higher” than a Russian attack.
Podolyak said Russia had been conducting large-scale troop rotations, manoeuvres and weapon deployments on a regular basis “to ensure constant massive psychological pressure” on Kyiv. “For our intelligence service and our armed forces, this Russian activity comes as absolutely no surprise,” he said.
Meanwhile Russian diplomat Dmitry Polyanskiy, a representative to the UN, called the latest American media reports citing unnamed officials “madness and scaremongering”.
“What if we would say the US could seize London in a week and cause 300K civilian deaths? All this based on our intelligence sources that we won’t disclose,” he said in a Twitter post.
Major EU countries are keeping a cautious stance and there are shadows of doubt on the US scenarios. Rather they have chosen the way of talking directly with both sides.
So it is reported that European leaders are expected to visit both Moscow and Kyiv next week in a bid to calm the tensions.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron will visit on Monday and Tuesday, while German chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to Kyiv on February 14 and Moscow the following day.
Meanwhile, elite US troops and equipment landed Sunday in southeastern Poland near the border with Ukraine following Biden’s orders to deploy 1,700 soldiers there amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The European Union’s economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said on Sunday that the focus should be on diplomacy.
“We must help the NATO countries bordering Russia and strengthen them also from a military point of view,” he said on Italian national broadcaster RAI.
“We must also be prepared for economic reactions and sanctions if there is a deterioration.”
Moscow has said it is not planning an invasion but could take unspecified military action if its security demands are not met.
Those include a promise that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will never admit Ukraine, a demand Washington and NATO have said is unacceptable.
Following the rapid course of the developments, which have taken international dimensions, the main concern are the Ukrainian sovereignty and freedom. The major question is not to let these ‘war games’ get out of hand as the main loser will be the people of Ukraine. / Argumentum.al
