US intelligence services assume that Putin has already given the order to invade
“Then Putin will not get less, but more NATO”
At the Munich Security Conference, Boris Johnson fears the biggest war in Europe since 1945. If it comes to that, even the SPD is considering more NATO troops in Eastern Europe. You couldn’t give Russia “the peace branch forever,” says EU Council President Charles Michel.
Can a war between Russia and Ukraine still be averted? Doubts about this are growing in the United States. Putin is sticking “to the letter to the script” known from previous invasions, says the US Secretary of State.
US-secret services are said to have learned last week that the Kremlin had ordered Russian military units to invade Ukraine. This is reported by the “New York Times” and the broadcasters CBS News and CNN, citing security circles. This information prompted US President Joe Biden to state that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had already made the decision to attack.
On Saturday, Biden said of Putin: “I am convinced that he made the decision.” And further: “We believe that they are targeting the Ukrainian capital of Kiev – a city of 2.8 million innocent people.”
The intelligence information is also said to show that 40 to 50 percent of the more than 150,000 Russian soldiers on the Ukrainian border have gone into battle formation and could launch an attack within days, the New York Times wrote. Some of the troops are said to be Russian reservists who could form an occupation force after an invasion.
However, the order does not mean that an invasion is certain, as Putin can always change his mind. Further details about the intelligence information were not known on Sunday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that the US was still doing everything it could to dissuade Putin from invading Ukraine. However, recent events, including the surge in troops in Belarus and increased shelling along the line of contact, showed that Putin was laying the pretexts and grounds for an invasion consistent with US intelligence findings and previous Russian territorial conquests .
Blinken: “Putin has stuck to the script”
“He follows the script almost to the letter,” Blinken told CNN. His offer to meet Lavrov in the coming days was conditional on Russia not invading Ukraine first, he told NBC.
“When tensions escalate to a maximum, as is the case now, for example, at the line of contact, then any spark, any unplanned incident or small planned provocation can lead to irreparable consequences,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview that was broadcast on Russian state television on Sunday.
Ukrainian soldiers at the front said they were under orders not to return fire.
According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the number of explosions in eastern Ukraine is steadily increasing. On Friday there were more than 1,400 detonations after 654 a day earlier, OSCE observers said. There have also been more than 1,500 ceasefire violations, up from 870 the day before. According to a diplomat, almost 2,000 explosions were counted on Saturday. Two Ukrainian soldiers were reportedly killed and four injured. The development continued unabated on Sunday.