The United States said Thursday that Russia is on the verge of unleashing a massive military attack against Ukraine, dismissing Moscow’s 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 Blinken said intelligence showed Moscow could order an assault on its neighbor in the “coming days.”
With US and other Western governments saying they see no evidence to support Russia’s claim to be withdrawing, Blinken challenged the Kremlin to “announce today with no qualification, equivocation or deflection that Russia will not invade Ukraine. State it clearly. State it plainly to the world.”
“Demonstrate it by sending your troops, your tanks, your planes, back to their barracks and hangers, and sending your diplomats to the negotiating table,” he said.
He told the diplomats that a sudden, seemingly violent event staged by Russia to justify an invasion could further escalate events into the realm of war.
“We don’t know exactly” the pretext — a “so-called terrorist bombing” inside Russia, a staged drone strike, “a fake, even a real attack… using chemical weapons,” he said.
It would open with cyberattacks, along with missiles and bombs across Ukraine, he said. Painting the US picture further, Blinken described the entry of Russian troops, advancing on Kyiv, a city of nearly 3 million, and other key targets.
US intelligence indicated Russia also would target “specific groups” of Ukrainians, Blinken said, again without giving details.
In an implicit nod to Secretary of State Colin Powell’s appearance before the Security Council in 2003, when he cited unsubstantiated and false US intelligence to justify the US invasion of Iraq, Blinken added: “Let me be clear. I am here today not to start a war, but to prevent one.”
US President Joe Biden, at the White House, also accused Moscow of preparing a “false flag operation” as a pretext for an attack and said this could happen “in the next several days.”
He said the invasion threat remains “very high” because Russia has moved more troops toward the border with Ukraine instead of pulling them back.
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