International Desk: More than a dozen countries have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine amid warnings from Western powers that an invasion by Russia could be imminent.
The US, UK and Germany are among those who told their nationals to leave.
Moscow has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s border but denies any intent to invade, reports BBC.
In a phone call, US President Joe Biden again warned Russian leader Vladimir Putin of the costs of any invasion.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said invasion warnings could stoke panic, which he called “the best friend of our enemies”.
The White House has warned that an invasion could happen at any time, and could begin with bombing from the air. Russia characterised such allegations as “provocative speculation”.
Non-essential staff have been ordered to leave the US Embassy in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, and consular services will be suspended from Sunday, although “a small consular presence” will remain in the western city of Lviv “to handle emergencies”.
Canada is also moving its embassy staff to Lviv, near the border with Poland, Canadian media reported. UK ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons tweeted that she and a “core team” are staying in Kyiv.
Russia itself is also making changes, saying it will “optimise the staffing” of its diplomats in Ukraine, citing “possible acts of provocation by the Kyiv regime or third countries”.
The US has also pulled some 150 troops who were training Ukrainian soldiers out of the country, citing an abundance of caution. And Dutch airline KLM announced it would stop flying to Ukraine, effective immediately, Dutch media said.
Mr Zelensky said that if Western powers had any firm evidence of an impending invasion, he had yet to see it.
“I think there is too much information in the media about a deep, full-scale war,” he said.
“We understand all the risks, we understand that they exist. If you or someone else has additional 100% reliable information about the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine… please share it with us.”
Many countries, including Australia, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands and Japan have told their citizens to leave Ukraine. Some have also evacuated diplomatic staff and their families.
Mr Biden told Mr Putin that any invasion would result in “swift and severe costs on Russia”, White House notes about the call said.
“While the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy… we are equally prepared for other scenarios,” it said.
The Kremlin described the call as taking place amid “peak hysteria” from the US and its allies, and said Mr Putin had again told his counterpart that they had not addressed Russia’s security concerns. But both leaders would continue to talk, it said.
French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke to Mr Putin by phone on Saturday, telling him that “a sincere dialogue was not compatible with escalation”, according to notes released by the French embassy.
In Kyiv, several thousand people marched through the city on Saturday, chanting slogans pledging loyalty to Ukraine and resistance to any Russian invasion. The march was organised by a right-wing nationalist group called Gonor and anti-Zelensky far-right activist Sergiy Sternenko, but it attracted other people too.
BBC reporter Eleanor Montague says the demonstration was not huge, but was the first significant manifestation of public feeling since tensions escalated, finishing at the Maidan, the city’s most famous square.
Sasha Nizelska, who works as a nanny in Kyiv, told the BBC that she would resist a Russian attack with all means in her power. The sentiment was repeated by people of all age groups attending the demonstration.
Tensions have steadily increased as Russia has continued to deploy troops along Ukraine’s eastern border. Russian troops are also staging military exercises in Belarus to the north, while naval exercises in the Sea of Azov in the south-east have led to accusations that Russia is blocking Ukraine’s access to the sea..
Meanwhile, some 7,500km (4,660 miles) away on Russia’s eastern side, the Russian defence ministry says it spotted a US Navy submarine inside its territorial waters. Officials say the US submarine was near the Kuril Islands and failed to surface when instructed.
The Marshal Shaposhnikov destroyer took unspecified “appropriate” actions and the US submarine left the area, the ministry said. A US defence official has been summoned by Moscow over the incident.
However, US officials later contradicted their Russian counterparts’ version of events.
“There is no truth to the Russian claims of our operations in their territorial waters,” US military spokesman Captain Kyle Raines said in a statement carried by Reuters.
“I will not comment on the precise location of our submarines but we do fly, sail, and operate safely in international waters.”
AP/UNB Adds:
Biden warns Putin of ‘severe costs’ of Ukraine invasion
President Joe Biden told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine would cause “widespread human suffering” and that the West was committed to diplomacy to end the crisis but “equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House said Saturday. It offered no suggestion that the hourlong call diminished the threat of an imminent war in Europe.
Biden also said the United States and its allies would respond “decisively and impose swift and severe costs” if the Kremlin attacked its neighbor, according to the White House.
The two presidents spoke a day after Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned that U.S. intelligence shows a Russian invasion could begin within days and before the Winter Olympics in Beijing end on Feb. 20.
Russia denies it intends to invade but has massed well over 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border and has sent troops to exercises in neighboring Belarus, encircling Ukraine on three sides. U.S. officials say Russia’s buildup of firepower has reached the point where it could invade on short notice.
The conversation came at a critical moment for what has become the biggest security crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War. U.S. officials believe they have mere days to prevent an invasion and enormous bloodshed in Ukraine. And while the U.S. and its NATO allies have no plans to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, an invasion and resulting punishing sanctions could reverberate far beyond the former Soviet republic, affecting energy supplies, global markets and the power balance in Europe.
“President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our Allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House statement said.
The call was “professional and substantive” but produced “no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters following the call on condition of anonymity.
The official added that it remains unclear whether Putin has made a final decision to move forward with military action.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy aide, said that while tensions have been escalating for months, in recent days “the situation has simply been brought to the point of absurdity.”
He said Biden mentioned the possible sanctions that could be imposed on Russia, but “this issue was not the focus during a fairly long conversation with the Russian leader.”
Before talking to Biden, Putin had a telephone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with him in Moscow earlier in the week to try to resolve the crisis. A Kremlin summary of the call suggested that little progress was made toward cooling down the tensions.
Putin complained in the call that the United States and NATO have not responded satisfactorily to Russian demands that Ukraine be prohibited from joining the military alliance and that NATO pull back forces from Eastern Europe.
In a sign that American officials are getting ready for a worst-case scenario, the United States announced plans to evacuate most of its staff from the embassy in the Ukrainian capital. Britain joined other European nations in urging its citizens to leave Ukraine.
Canada has shuttered its embassy in Kyiv and relocated its diplomatic staff to a temporary office in Lviv, located in the western part of the country, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Saturday. Lviv is home to a Ukrainian military base that has served as the main hub for Canada’s 200-soldier training mission in the former Soviet country.
The timing of any possible Russian military action remained a key question.
The U.S. picked up intelligence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a U.S. official familiar with the findings. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and did so only on condition of anonymity, would not say how definitive the intelligence was.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he told his Russian counterpart Saturday that “further Russian aggression would be met with a resolute, massive and united trans-Atlantic response.”
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to project calm as he observed military exercises Saturday near Crimea, the peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
“We are not afraid, we’re without panic, all is under control,” he said.
Ukrainian armed forces chief commander Lt. Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov issued a more defiant joint statement.
“We are ready to meet the enemy, and not with flowers, but with Stingers, Javelins and NLAWs” — anti-tank and -aircraft weapons, they said. “Welcome to hell!”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, also held telephone discussions on Saturday.
Further U.S.-Russia tensions arose on Saturday when the Defense Ministry summoned the U.S. Embassy’s military attache after it said the navy detected an American submarine in Russian waters near the Kuril Islands in the Pacific. The submarine declined orders to leave, but departed after the navy used unspecified “appropriate means,” the ministry said.
Adding to the sense of crisis, the Pentagon ordered an additional 3,000 U.S. troops to Poland to reassure allies.
