Washington (National Times)- The United States said Thursday that Russia is on the verge of unleashing a massive military attack against Ukraine, dismissing Moscow\u2019s claim to be pulling forces back, as artillery fire hit a Ukrainian kindergarten.<\/p>\n
In a dramatic, previously unscheduled speech to the United Nations in New York, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said intelligence showed Moscow could order an assault on its neighbor in the \u201ccoming days.\u201d<\/p>\n
With US and other Western governments saying they see no evidence to support Russia\u2019s claim to be withdrawing, Blinken challenged the Kremlin to \u201cannounce today with no qualification, equivocation or deflection that Russia will not invade Ukraine. State it clearly. State it plainly to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDemonstrate it by sending your troops, your tanks, your planes, back to their barracks and hangers, and sending your diplomats to the negotiating table,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Russia denies any invasion plans but warned of \u201cmilitary-technical measures\u201d if its far-reaching demands for a US and NATO pullback from eastern Europe aren\u2019t satisfied.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden, at the White House, accused Moscow of preparing a \u201cfalse flag operation\u201d as a pretext for an attack and said this could happen \u201cin the next several days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have not moved any of their troops out. They\u2019ve moved more troops in,\u201d Biden said. \u201cEvery indication we have is that they\u2019re prepared to go into Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, however, that diplomacy is not dead. \u201cThere is a path. There is a way through this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Russia has massed enormous air, land and sea forces around Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin and officials say they do not plan to invade Ukraine and that the troops are only conducting practice exercises.<\/p>\n
However, Putin has made clear that the price for removing any threat would be Ukraine agreeing never to join NATO and for the Western alliance to pull back from a swath of eastern Europe, effectively splitting the continent into Cold War-style spheres of influence. Ukraine is far from being ready to join NATO but has set this as part of a broader goal to integrate with the democracies of western Europe, making a historic break from Russia\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n
The United States said Thursday that it had received Putin\u2019s response to its offers of a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but did not give any reaction to the contents.<\/p>\n
The Russian foreign ministry indicated that there was little to discuss.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the absence of will on the American side to negotiate firm and legally binding guarantees on our security from the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to respond, including with military-technical measures,\u201d the foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe insist on the withdrawal of all US armed forces in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Baltics,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Russia also expelled the number two US diplomat in Moscow, the US State Department said, condemning the \u201cunprovoked\u201d action.<\/p>\n
Russia took over Ukraine\u2019s Crimea region and began backing heavily armed separatists in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions in 2014, sparking a war that has already cost thousands of lives.<\/p>\n
Sporadic fighting remains common in the east and the Ukrainian army accused the pro-Russian separatists of 34 ceasefire breaches on Thursday, 28 of them using heavy weapons.<\/p>\n
The potentially most serious incident — an example of the kind of spark that many fear could ignite far more intense fighting — was the shelling of a kindergarten in the village of Stanytsia-Luganska. Children were inside but none were hit.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted that the attack \u201cby pro-Russian forces is a big provocation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russian news agencies meanwhile quoted authorities in the separatist Lugansk region saying they blamed Kyiv after the situation on the frontline \u201cescalated significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described Thursday\u2019s reports as \u201ctroubling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve said for some time that the Russians might do something like this in order to justify a military conflict. So we\u2019ll be watching this very closely,\u201d Austin told journalists after a meeting with NATO counterparts.<\/p>\n
Western capitals say they are also concerned by the Russian parliament\u2019s request that Putin grant unilateral recognition of independence for the separatists in eastern Ukraine, probably ending chances of reuniting the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this request were accepted, it would… demonstrate a Russian decision to choose a path of confrontation over dialogue,\u201d British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.<\/p>\n
Putin earlier this week claimed with no evidence that Ukraine is committing \u201cgenocide\u201d in the eastern region.<\/p>\n
Moscow has made several announcements of troop withdrawals this week and on Thursday said that units of the southern and western military districts, including tank units, had begun returning to their bases from near Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said some troops had returned to their garrisons in several areas far from the border, including Chechnya and Dagestan in the North Caucasus, and near Nizhny Novgorod, some 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of Moscow.<\/p>\n
The United States, NATO and Ukraine all said they had seen no evidence of a pullback, with Washington saying Russia had in fact moved 7,000 more troops near the border.<\/p>\n
According to US officials, there are now about 150,000 Russian troops arrayed in offensive groupings on the southern, eastern and northern borders of Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington (National Times)- The United States said Thursday that Russia is on the verge of unleashing a massive military attack against Ukraine, dismissing Moscow\u2019s claim to be pulling forces back, as artillery fire hit a Ukrainian kindergarten. In a dramatic, previously unscheduled speech to the United Nations in New York, US Secretary of State Antony […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-showbiz","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n