President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Ukraine Crisis Highlights: U.S. President Joe Biden warned Thursday that Russia could still invade Ukraine within days, and the No. 2 diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was expelled as tensions flared anew in the worst East-West standoff in decades. NATO allies accused Russia of misleading the world with “disinformation” by saying it was returning some troops to their bases – one of the gestures Russia made this week that briefly cooled temperatures and raised hopes for peace. Russia is believed to have some 150,000 forces around Ukraine’s borders. Speaking at the White House, Biden said Washington saw no signs of a Russian withdrawal of forces, and said the U.S. has “reason to believe” that Russia is “engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in.”
India does not have any immediate plan to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine and its focus has been on ensuring their safety rather than on anything “larger”, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday. MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing that India has been supportive of an immediate de-escalation of tensions and resolution of the Ukraine crisis through sustained diplomatic dialogue. He said the Indian embassy in Kyiv has been in touch with the Indian students in Ukraine and that it continued to monitor the situation on the ground.
European Union leader held a short summit meeting Thursday to assess the chances of diplomacy to unlock the standoff over Ukraine and discuss sanctions in case Russia invades its neighbour. The hastily called summit preceded a two-day EU-Africa meeting which brought the 27 EU leaders to Brussels. The meeting was not expected to go into deep detail of what sanctions should be used and how those measures would hit the economies of the member states, officials said.
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Russia has amassed 45,000 soldiers in Belarus and their presence is threatening to Baltic states and Poland, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Thursday. The joint Russian and Belarus military exercise near the Belarus border with Ukraine is scheduled to end on Sunday.
Tensions between Moscow and NATO capitals are high following weeks of United States accusations that Russia has deployed up to 150,000 troops near Ukraine's borders for an invasion. (Reuters)
There is no certainty on what will happen in terms of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the coming days, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday, in an interview with Polish state broadcaster TVP. (Reuters)
Russia on Thursday said it has ordered the expulsion of Bart Gorman, the US official in Moscow amid the Ukraine crisis. According to reports, it is considered the response to the US expulsion of a senior official at the Russian embassy in Washington.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov to discuss Ukraine crisis next week in Europe, news agency AFP reported.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday that an attack on a kindergarten in Ukraine was a false flag operation designed to discredit the Ukrainians, Reuters reported. "The picture is continuing to be very grim," Johnson told reporters during a visit to a military base in England, when asked about the latest intelligence on Ukraine."A kindergarten was shelled in what we are taking to be, what we know was a false flag operation designed to discredit the Ukrainians, designed to create a pre-text, a spurious provocation for Russian action."
"We fear very much that that is a thing we will see more of over the next few days," Johnson added.
India's permament representative to the United Nations, T S Tirumurti spoke in the Security Council meet on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, where he said that the situation requires immediate de-escalation of troops. He also said that over 20,000 Indians are in Ukraine, whose security will be threatened if situation worsen.
Trimurti also said that peaceful resolution with contructive dialogue with all parties is required to resolve the issue.
Amid the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the United Nations held a session of its Security Council over the issue. US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken present in the meeting said, " This is a moment of peril for the lives and safety of millions of people as well as for the foundation of the United Nations Charter and the rules-based international order that preserves stability worldwide,” Blinken said," The guardian reported.
Our information indicates clearly that [Russian] forces including ground troops, aircraft ships are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days,” he said.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has in New York City to address the United Nations Security Council regarding the ongoing Ukraine-Russia crisis. Blinken in a tweet informed about the development.
"We seek to resolve this crisis diplomatically but are prepared to impose severe measures should Russia further invade Ukraine," Blinken said.
European Union leader held a short summit meeting Thursday to assess the chances of diplomacy to unlock the standoff over Ukraine and discuss sanctions in case Russia invades its neighbour.
The hastily called summit preceded a two-day EU-Africa meeting which brought the 27 EU leaders to Brussels. The meeting was not expected to go into deep detail of what sanctions should be used and how those measures would hit the economies of the member states, officials said.
“Diplomacy has not yet spoken its last word. That is good and we have still hope that peace will prevail," said EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. The EU has joined the United Kingdom and the United States in insisting that Russia would be hit with massive sanctions if it invades Ukraine.
Before heading into the summit, von der Leyen joined calls for Russia to physically provide proof its troops are moving away from confrontation near the Ukraine border. (AP)
US President Joe Biden on Fiday said that there is a “very high" risk of Russian invasion of Ukraine within days. Meanwhile Russia has expeled the deputy chief of the US diplomatic mission in Moscow. US State Department has called the expulsion unprovoked.
India does not have any immediate plan to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine and its focus has been on ensuring their safety rather than on anything "larger", the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday.
MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing that India has been supportive of an immediate de-escalation of tensions and resolution of the Ukraine crisis through sustained diplomatic dialogue.
He said the Indian embassy in Kyiv has been in touch with the Indian students in Ukraine and that it continued to monitor the situation on the ground.
The embassy on Tuesday advised Indian citizens, especially the students, to temporarily leave that country in view of the "uncertainties of the current situation". It also asked Indian nationals to avoid all non-essential travel to and within Ukraine.
"Our focus is and remains on Indian citizens, Indian students, Indian nationals rather than anything larger than that and in terms of what we need to do to ensure that they are safe," Bagchi said. (PTI)
Ivan Malyuta, a resident of Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, applied for Russian citizenship this month and said he, his wife and three children will soon be getting Russian passports.
“I want to be a citizen of the Russian Federation. We are moving towards this, aren't we?” he said at a Donetsk migration service office.
Malyuta and his family will join more than 720,000 residents of rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine who have received Russian citizenship and passports in a fast-track procedure widely seen as an attempt to underscore Russia's influence in the region.
Russia threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine in 2014, shortly after annexing Crimea in response to a popular uprising in Kyiv ousting a Kremlin-friendly president.
Moscow has denied deploying troops or weapons to the rebel-held areas, with government officials repeatedly stressing that Russia is not a party to the conflict, which has killed over 14,000 people. (AP)
NATO allies accused Russia of misleading the world by saying it was returning some troops to bases, reporting that Moscow has instead added as many as 7,000 more forces near its tense border with Ukraine. The alliance warned Thursday that the buildup has only strengthened its resolve.
After a handful of positive signals from Russia that eased tensions earlier in the week, the pendulum appeared to be swinging in the opposite direction again.
The NATO chief welcomed Kremlin offers to keep pursuing diplomatic solutions, but he and others warned that the US-led alliance has still seen no sign of the military withdrawal that Moscow announced.
“We have seen the opposite of some of the statements. We have seen an increase of troops over the last 48 hours, up to 7,000," said British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace ahead of a meeting of the western alliance in Brussels.
“We are deadly serious,” he added, “and we're going to face the threat that is currently being posed.” That squared with what a US administration official said Wednesday. (AP)
Indian shares closed lower in volatile trading on Thursday as tensions over Ukraine outweighed the impact of the U.S. Federal Reserve's less-than-feared hawkish stance, reflected in the minutes of its last policy meet. The NSE Nifty 50 index fell 0.1% at 17,304, while the S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.18% at 57,892.01
Russian-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces traded accusations on Thursday that each had fired across the ceasefire line in eastern Ukraine, raising alarm at a time when Western countries have warned of the possibility of a Russian invasion any day.
"Any escalation in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will make Indian markets very volatile," said Prashanth Tapse, vice president (research), Mehta Equities.
Market expectations for U.S. rate hikes have come down following the Fed minutes, Tapse said, adding that if the Russia-Ukraine conflict did not settle, there was a chance the Fed might push its rate hike plans.
The Fed minutes showed that while policymakers agreed that it would "soon be appropriate" to raise rates, they would re-assess the rate hike timeline at each meeting. (Reuters)
Ukraine's military officials on Thursday claimed that a Kindergarten school in the Stanytsia Luhanska, Luhansk region was damaged by shelling.
Russia and Belarus will end their joint military drills on Feb. 20 as previously planned, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday, addressing Western concerns that Russian troops may stay in Belarus for a longer time.
Separately, the RIA news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that the matter of extending Russian troops' stay in Belarus was not on the agenda.
The drills in Belarus have added to Western fears of a possible Russian invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. Moscow has denied planning such an attack. (Reuters)
Britain's defence minister said on Thursday that Ukraine was on a pathway towards NATO membership and that London had made it clear to the Kremlin that the alliance's policy of welcoming new members will not change.
"We remain an open-door organization," Ben Wallace told reporters at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. "I've made it very clear to the Kremlin that countries choose NATO. NATO doesn't go around choosing the countries."
Wallace also said NATO was right to respond to what he said were 150,000 Russian troops massed on Russia's borders near Ukraine. "This is a real challenge to the stability of Europe." (Reuters)
Artillery shelling was heard on Thursday near Donetsk airport and Elenovka, a village in Donetsk province, both parts of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed rebels, a witness said.
Fuelling Russia-West tensions over Ukraine, the rebels and Ukrainian government forces accused each other of violating ceasefire agreements on Thursday and using heavy weaponry including mortars and artillery. (Reuters)
Ukraine's military Thursday accused Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine of firing shells at a village in the Luhansk region, hitting a kindergarten.
The military said there no injuries were caused.
Earlier Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine accused government forces of opening fire on their territory four times in the past 24 hours and said they were trying to establish if anyone had been hurt or killed. (Reuters)