Biden and Putin to speak Saturday as U.S. warns imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine a ‘distinct possibility’

As U.S. warnings sharply escalated, the White House said that President Biden would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin late Saturday morning, Washington time. The Kremlin said Biden had requested the call. U.S. officials said the Russians proposed it occur on Monday but accepted Biden’s Saturday counterproposal.

The announcement of the call came amid reports of new intelligence, and evidence on the ground, over the last several days indicating that Russia is now fully prepared to launch an invasion. Sullivan said that the United States has no final confirmation that Putin has made the final decision to attack. But, he said, “we believe he very well may give the final go order. That is a very distinct possibility.”

“It may well happen,” he repeated. “It may well happen soon.”

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis remained at a stalemate, as Russia kicked off a second day of major military exercises in Belarus near Ukraine’s borders that analysts say could presage an invasion.

Biden held a call early Friday with his counterparts in Canada, the U.K. and other NATO partners to further coordinate “diplomacy and deterrence,” the White House said.

As the mood also darkened in Europe, ambassadors from NATO member countries convened in Brussels to discuss the continued Russian buildup, a U.S. official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Australia that the West continues to see “troubling signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border.”

“As we’ve said before, we’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time, and to be clear, that includes during the Olympics,” Blinken said. He referred to speculation among some officials that Putin may wait for the conclusion of the Olympic Games in Beijing to avoid angering China, its key partner. The exercises are scheduled to end on Feb. 20, the same day as the games conclude.

According to one Western official, Moscow’s military preparations for a full-scale invasion are complete. “Militarily it can start within days,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. “It’s up to Putin.”

U.S. officials now believe that Putin is likely to launch an attack, potentially as early as next week, according to multiple officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss administration deliberations. That judgment is based in part based on new intelligence that Russia is planning to conduct an operation to create a false pretext for invading Ukraine, the officials said.

The precise date and nature of the Russian operation, known as a false flag, was unclear. U.S. officials had earlier called out Russia for planning to stage and film a fake attack by Ukrainian military forces on Russia as a pretext for invasion.

On Thursday, a meeting in the White House Situation Room was quickly convened to discuss the latest developments.

Sullivan declined to discuss specific intelligence assessments, but said “the intelligence community has sufficient confidence that I can come before you and say” there is “a distinct possibility that [Putin] will order a military action, an invasion of Ukraine, in this window” that could “include the time period before Feb. 20.”

The intelligence community, he added, “believe that everything I have just said is well-grounded, in both what they are seeing on the ground and what they are picking up through various sources.”

Reminded of faulty intelligence that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Sullivan said there was a “fundamental difference” between the two situations. “In Iraq, intelligence was used and deployed … to start a war,” he said. “We are trying to stop a war.”

“All we can do is come here before you in good faith and share everything we know … while protecting [intelligence] sources and methods … We are talking about more than 100,000 [Russian] troops amassed” on Ukraine’s borders,” he said, noting that photos of the deployments were “all over social media.”

A senior European diplomat confirmed that the United States had shared intelligence leading to a new sense of urgency, and noted that a number of countries are now telling their citizens to evacuate immediately. Britain’s foreign office issued an advisory that “British nationals in Ukraine should leave now while commercial means are still available.” Denmark and Norway issued similar advice.

Speaking of what are believed to be thousands of U.S. citizens in Ukraine, Sullivan said that “the risk is now high enough, and the threat is immediate enough that prudence demands it is time to leave now.” He said that, unlike in Afghanistan, there would be no U.S. military evacuation.

“The president will not be putting the lives of our men and women in uniform at risk by sending them into a war zone to rescue people who could have left now but chose not to. So we are asking people to make the responsible choice,” he said.

U.S. officials confirmed Friday that an additional 3,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division would be sent to Poland, adding to the 1,700 troops already dispatched to that country. The new deployment was first reported by Reuters.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also spoke Friday by telephone with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. The two “discussed several security-related issues of concern” but as with previous calls between them they “agreed to keep the specific details of their conversation private,” a Milley spokesperson said. Milley also spoke with counterparts from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and the United Kingdom, as well as the head of the NATO military committee on “adjustment of the U.S. force posture in Europe.”

Sullivan emphasized that U.S. troops are “not being sent to fight Russia in Ukraine. They are not going to war in Ukraine. They are not going to war with Russia.” U.S. forces, he said, are in place in NATO countries to reinforce and defend the alliance within its own territory.

Ukraine is not a member of NATO. To defend it, the United States and other allies have sent hundreds of millions of dollars of defensive military equipment and trained its armed forces. The allies have promised swift and severe economic sanctions, designed to cripple a significant portion of the Russian economy and industry, if Moscow launches military action against Ukraine.

In Ukraine, Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba invoked diplomatic agreements to ask Russia for detailed information about its exercises, including precise locations, numbers of troops and dates of completed activity. Russia has 48 hours to comply, Kuleba said. Noncompliance could escalate to emergency meetings within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, experts said.

Friday’s escalating warnings came after a series of tense encounters and emergency meetings the previous day, including a quickly convened meeting in the White House Situation Room Thursday evening. Earlier, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned following a meeting in Moscow with her Russian counterpart that a renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine would lead to “severe consequences.” Lavrov characterized their meeting as a conversation between the “deaf and the dumb.”.

Britain’s diplomatic efforts were further stymied Friday following a meeting in Moscow between Russia Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his British counterpart, Ben Wallace. The meeting came after Wallace announced that 350 Royal Marines would soon be deployed to Poland in a gesture of solidarity.

Wallace later told reporters that British troops currently in Ukraine on a training mission were completing their mission and would will leave “pretty soon.”

Shoigu, following the meeting, said that “Unfortunately, the level of our cooperation is close to zero and about to cross the zero meridian and go into negative, which is undesirable,” Agence France-Presse reported, citing Russian news agencies. Shoigu blasted Ukraine’s partners for “gorging” the country with weapons, a reference to the United States supplying antitank weapons, and to other NATO allies, such as Lithuania, sending antiaircraft launchers into Ukraine.

“It is coming from all sides, and it is done publicly. It is done demonstrably. Not entirely clear why,” Shoigu said, as Russian drills on Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern flanks ramped up.

What’s happening in the Ukraine-Russia crisis

In Berlin, negotiators representing Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany failed to come to an agreement after nine hours of discussions seeking a resolution to a long-running conflict between Kyiv and Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine’s contested east. There were no immediate plans for another round of the “Normandy format” talks, although Ukraine’s envoy said he hoped negotiations would continue.

Russia denies having plans to attack Ukraine, but has assembled some 130,000 heavily armed troops around its smaller neighbor, from which it annexed Crimea in 2014. Exercises that began Thursday in Belarus, within striking distance of Ukrainian territory, are the largest it has ever held in the neighboring country. The operations involve tens of thousands of troops and sophisticated weapons systems such as S-400 surface-to-air missiles, Pantsir air defense systems and Su-35 fighter jets.

On the second day of the maneuvers, the Russian military touted field training on land and in the air. Fighter jet crews practiced destroying approaching aircraft, and Russian motorized rifle units paired with Belarusian Special Operations forces to attack mock troop formations. Marine scouts also led classes on ambush tactics and surveillance, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Kremlin is also conducting military maneuvers in the Black Sea, near Ukraine’s southern coastline. This week, a detachment of six Russian landing ships arrived at the Sevastopol port in Crimea. The ships typically are used for unloading troops, vehicles and equipment. Some were used in Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008.

Putin has demanded that NATO permanently bar Ukraine, which he sees as part of his country’s sphere of influence, from joining the military alliance. He has also demanded that the bloc pull back its forces from Eastern Europe. The alliance has rejected the ultimatum, citing an open-door policy that allows any nation to seek entry, even as Washington signals its willingness to negotiate on issues Moscow considers of “secondary” importance.

“NATO will not compromise on core principles,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday at a news conference in Brussels with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “Renewed Russian aggression will lead to more NATO presence, not less.”

Defense ministers of NATO member states will meet next week and consider shifting additional troops to bolster the bloc’s southeastern flank. Members have already committed to deploying military assets to Bulgaria, and the United States is also moving troops into Romania.

Kyiv is hosting a military exercise of its own this week, and officials there condemned the Russian operations as a threat to Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine also accused Russia of violating international law by restricting wide swaths of the Black Sea as it conducts missile and artillery fire training, a claim that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Thursday.

Peskov said that all Russian naval conduct in the Black Sea is in compliance with international maritime law and that the Kremlin’s ships are not blocking any trade routes, according to Tass.

Horton reported from Kyiv and Cheng from Seoul. Robyn Dixon in Moscow, Karla Adam in London and Ellen Nakashima, Ashley Parker and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.