Russia-Ukraine live updates: Biden to speak about Ukraine amid unconfirmed reports of evacuations from separatist area

The United States asserted Friday that Russia has “probably” massed as many as 190,000 personnel in and near Ukraine, a significant jump from an estimate of 100,000 on Jan. 30.

The assessment was included in a statement by the U.S. mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“[T]his is the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the Second World War,” said the statement, as delivered by U.S. Ambassador Michael Carpenter.

According to the statement, the United States believes Russia has amassed between 169,000 and 190,000 military personnel in and near Ukraine.

“This estimate includes military troops along the border, in Belarus, and in occupied Crimea; Russian National Guard and other internal security units deployed to these areas; and Russian-led forces in eastern Ukraine,” the statement said. “While Russia has sought to downplay or deceive the world about their ground and air preparations, the Russian military has publicized its large-scale naval exercises in the Black Sea, Baltic Sea and the Arctic.”

MUNICH — The Biden administration is “deeply concerned” that Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned away from a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told an audience at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

The top U.S. diplomat made the remarks amid fears that an evacuation announcement by a Russian-backed leader of a separatist-controlled area of eastern Ukraine could be followed by military action.

“Even as we are doing everything we possibly can to make clear there’s a diplomatic path … we are deeply concerned that is not the path Russia is embarked on,” said Blinken, speaking on a panel that included German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Blinken said Russia continues to create “false provocations” and that the United States is committed to shining a “light on what we see.”

Blinken said the “single greatest source of strength we have” is solidarity with European partners, including Germany. The German government has decided against providing Ukraine with defensive weapons, even as other countries have supplied mortars, antitank missiles and other gear.

Responding to criticism that Germany has not done more to help Ukraine, Baerbock said, “We have different roles, and we have a different history.” She noted that Berlin’s opposition to sending weapons abroad stemmed from its post-World War II vow to “never again” start a “war” or a “genocide.”

On imposing sanctions on Moscow for its actions, she vowed that Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Germany would not be spared — something that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been more reluctant to state specifically.

“All options are on the table, including Nord Stream 2,” she said.

Blinken defended Germany’s actions related to the Ukraine crisis, saying it plays a “complementary” role.

Eight years ago, on Feb. 18, 2014, police stormed anti-government protesters in Kyiv’s Maidan square. It was a turning point in days of violence that would leave dozens dead and oust a pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. On Friday, under the cloud of a potential Russian invasion, Ukrainians gathered to honor the memories of those lost in the “Maidan revolution.” Citizens attached paper angels to monuments. Veterans brought flags to a memorial that bears the names of the protesters who died during the revolution. Moments of silence were observed at the site that changed the country.

Vice President Harris renewed a warning of “severe consequences” if Russia invades Ukraine as she met Friday with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Munich.

“We remain, of course, supportive of diplomacy as it relates to the dialogue and discussions we’ve had with Russia, but we are also committed to taking corrective actions to ensure there will be severe consequences in terms of the sanctions we have discussed, and we know the alliance is strong in that regard,” Harris said during a portion of the meeting reporters were permitted to observe.

Harris is leading the U.S. delegation to the Munich Security Conference, a high-profile annual gathering that has taken on heightened importance, given Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine borders.

In her meeting with Stoltenberg, she reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to NATO allies.

“Right now, we are obviously dealing with being concerned about what’s happening in Ukraine,” she said. “As a member of NATO, we feel very strongly about and will always be committed to the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

In a later meeting with leaders of NATO’s Baltic states, Harris said the United States has “prioritized the importance of diplomacy.”

“The onus is on Russia at this point to demonstrate that it is serious in that regard,” she said.

Latvian President Egils Levits said his goal is to “avoid the hot phase” of the conflict and that he hopes a unified West will ensure “the cost-benefit analysis” for Russia leads it to a diplomatic solution.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want democracy to prevail in Ukraine.

“We have all lost our independence to Russia once, and we don’t want it to happen again,” she said. “We understand what is at stake here.”

KYIV, Ukraine — The Russian-backed leader of a separatist-controlled area of eastern Ukraine said Friday that officials there were launching a mass evacuation of civilians into neighboring Russia, citing the threat of military action in the region by Ukrainian troops.

An exodus from Ukraine into Russia, which could not immediately be confirmed, would be seen as a signal that major military activities are imminent.

Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in Ukraine’s Donbas region, said in a video address that Russia had agreed to accept residents of the region and that checkpoints and border crossings were ready to speed their movement.

“First of all, women, children and the elderly are subject to evacuation,” Pushilin said. “By agreement with the leadership of the Russian Federation, places to take in and accommodate our citizens are ready in the Rostov region” of western Russia.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in a response to a question from a reporter about the reports of an evacuation from Donbas, said, “I have no information about what is happening there now.”

Pushilin beseeched residents of the region to leave the area, at least temporarily, to “save their life.” Pushilin claimed without presenting evidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “will soon give an order to … invade the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.”

The evacuation announcement is particularly worrying, coming after Russian President Vladimir Putin twice accused Ukraine of “genocide” in the separatist east during a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday. There are fears that the evacuation itself could be used by Moscow as a pretext to launch an attack, on the basis of claims that Ukraine’s military mounted major attacks. Peskov warned this week of the “high risk” of a Ukrainian attack on the separatist regions.

Many civilians in the region fled over the border to Russia during fighting in 2014 and 2015, but there was no organized mass evacuation.

Russia’s Interfax news agency, citing an unnamed source, said officials were planning for the evacuation of “several hundreds of thousands of people.”

“Accommodation centers have already been set up for them,” Interfax quoted the source as saying.

Putin noted the spiking tensions, which he also blamed on Ukraine and its Western allies, during a news conference Friday in Moscow. “All Kyiv needs to do is sit down at the negotiating table with representatives of Donbas and agree on political, military, economic and humanitarian measures to end the conflict,” Putin said.

“Unfortunately now we are seeing the opposite — the escalation of the conflict in Donbas.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba rejected accusations that Ukraine was poised to launch a major attack on Donbas. “We categorically refute Russian disinformation reports on Ukraine’s alleged offensive operations or acts of sabotage in chemical production facilities,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter. “Ukraine does not conduct or plan any such actions in the Donbas. We are fully committed to diplomatic conflict resolution only.”

David L. Stern in Lviv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged global powers to provide his country with security guarantees, stressing: “It’s not altruism, it’s about you being next.”

In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, a Ukrainian news agency, Zelensky said that NATO is the only security alliance available for his country to join, but that there is “a long way to go — years and months,” and he noted Russia’s willingness to use military force to stop Kyiv from doing so.

Therefore, he said, Ukraine “must get a system of guarantees” from other countries, which should be “equal to the system offered to NATO countries.” According to Article 5 of NATO’s charter, an armed attack on one of its members is considered an attack on all of its members, which can respond with armed force if required. It was invoked for the first time after the 9/11 attacks against the United States.

Offering security guarantees to Ukraine would help protect other countries in the region, as well, Zelensky said. “Ukraine not only defends its territory, but also deters further encroachments in Eastern Europe,” he said.

He added that Ukraine was not asking other countries to deploy troops to Ukraine: “We do not want to give an extra reason for the Russian Federation to say that we have bases here and that they need to ‘protect’ themselves.”

After the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Ukraine abruptly came into possession of the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. In 1994, the United States and Russia persuaded Kyiv to give up the weapons in return for security assurances, which were nonbinding agreements that didn’t require the United States to send troops to protect Ukraine.

Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea has been viewed by the West as a breach of those assurances.

MINSK, Belarus — Russian President Vladimir Putin received his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, in the Kremlin on Friday as the two countries conducted massive military drills near the Ukrainian border.

Putin greeted Lukashenko with a hug, and the two were seated at a small table, notably unlike the seating arrangement with a string of Western leaders, who were separated from the Russian president by a table 20 feet long.

Lukashenko is hosting the Russian armed forces for a lengthy exercise involving air and ground troops along with ballistic missile systems capable of reaching Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

Both Minsk and Moscow deny that they are preparing to attack their neighbor but have significantly ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Kyiv government and the West.

“The military-political spectrum was brought to the center of the stage thanks to the effort of our Western partners, as you call them, and we have to react to this, including by holding military exercises and through diplomacy,” Lukashenko said Friday.

Putin, in turn, invited Lukashenko to attend another major military exercise on Saturday that will involve launching strategic ballistic and cruise missiles.

The United Nations children’s agency called for safe access to education for children in eastern Ukraine after the country’s military said an artillery shell hit a kindergarten building.

Ukrainian officials said the kindergarten in the east was among civilian structures hit by artillery from Russian-backed separatist forces Thursday, heightening tensions in a region already on edge in the wake of Moscow’s troop buildup along the Ukrainian border.

Three adult employees suffered concussions, the Ukrainian military said in a statement posted to social media, but no children were reported hurt. The kindergarten is located in an area where both Ukrainian troops and separatists withdrew from front-line positions in 2019 as part of an agreement to create a disengagement zone.

Pro-Russian separatists accused Ukrainian government forces of opening fire, which Ukraine’s armed forces denied.

Cease-fire violations in the country’s disputed eastern territories intensified Thursday and continued into Friday, according to European monitors.

“Attacks on kindergartens and schools have been a sad reality for children in eastern Ukraine over the last eight years,” UNICEF said in a statement. More than 750 schools have been damaged during the conflict, “disrupting access to education for thousands of children on both sides of the contact line,” it said.

“The conflict has taken a severe toll on the psychosocial well-being of an entire generation of children growing up in Eastern Ukraine,” the agency added. “UNICEF calls on all parties to … protect children and their caregivers from attacks, regardless of the circumstances they might find themselves in.”