Biden Urges Americans to Leave Ukraine as Fears of Russian Invasion Mount

President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting on reducing gun violence, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Monday, July 12, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo)
President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting on reducing gun violence, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Monday, July 12, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo)
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Biden Urges Americans to Leave Ukraine as Fears of Russian Invasion Mount

President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting on reducing gun violence, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Monday, July 12, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo)
President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting on reducing gun violence, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Monday, July 12, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo)

US President Joe Biden urged Americans Thursday to immediately leave Ukraine, as Russia's live-fire drills and build-up of troops around the ex-Soviet state deepened fears of an invasion.

Washington-Moscow tensions are at their highest since the Cold War, with some US estimates saying some 130,000 Russian soldiers are grouped in dozens of combat brigades near the border with Ukraine, AFP reported.

"American citizens should leave now," Biden said in a pre-taped interview with NBC News.

"We're dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It's a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly."

Biden reiterated that under no circumstances would he send US troops to Ukraine, even to rescue Americans in case of a Russian invasion.

"That's a world war. When Americans and Russians start shooting one another, we're in a very different world," he said.

Biden's remarks were released hours after Russia rolled its tanks across Belarus for live-fire drills that drew an ominous warning from NATO and added urgency to Western efforts to avert war on the continent.

NATO said Russia's deployment of missiles, heavy armor and machine-gun toting soldiers marked a "dangerous moment" for Europe some three decades after the Soviet Union's collapse.

Western leaders have been shuttling to Moscow in an effort to keep the lines of communication open, giving Russia a chance to air its grievances about NATO's expansion into eastern Europe and ex-Soviet states.

But they have also sought to project their resolve in the face of what they is Russian escalation of an already-tense situation.

"Russia should not underestimate our unity and determination as a partner in the EU and as an ally in NATO," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned.

In a bid to "reduce chances of miscalculation" during the drills, US and Belarusian defense chiefs held rare telephone talks, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Russia has also sent six warships through the Bosphorus for naval drills on the Black Sea and the neighboring Sea of Azov.

Kyiv condemned their presence as an "unprecedented" attempt to cut off Ukraine from both seas.

Moscow and Minsk have not disclosed how many troops are participating, but the United States has said around 30,000 soldiers were being dispatched to Belarus from locations including Russia's Far East.

- 'Disappointed' -
Russia's defense ministry insisted the exercises would center around "suppressing and repelling external aggression" and the Kremlin has promised the troops will go home after the exercises.

But Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said "the accumulation of forces at the border is psychological pressure from our neighbors".

Kyiv has launched its own military drills expected to mirror Russia's games, but officials have said little about them out of apparent fear of escalating tensions.

Russia is seeking written guarantees that NATO will withdraw its presence from eastern Europe and never expand into Ukraine.

The United States and NATO have officially rejected Russia's demands.

Washington has however floated the idea of the sides striking a new disarmament agreement for Europe -- an offer viewed as dramatically insufficient by Moscow.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was the latest Western diplomat to travel to Moscow on Thursday, where she reported receiving promises from her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that the Kremlin had no plans to invade Ukraine.

"We need to see those words followed up by actions," she told reporters after the talks.

But Lavrov said he was "disappointed" by the talks, saying the military drills and the movement of troops across Russia's own territory had spurred "incomprehensible alarm and quite strong emotions from our British counterparts and other Western representatives".

- 'Warning time going down' -
Truss' trip came just days after French President Emmanuel Macron conducted a round of shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Kyiv, before briefing Scholtz about progress in Berlin.

The German chancellor will travel to Kyiv and Moscow next week for separate meetings with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders -- including his first in-person meeting with Putin.

His position on the new Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany will be under particularly close scrutiny.

In Washington this week, Scholz had been largely evasive about Biden's pledge to "bring an end" to the critical energy link should Russia invade Ukraine.

The chancellor later said it was a conscious decision "not to publish the entire catalog" of potential sanctions "because we can gain a little bit of power" by remaining vague.

The flurry of diplomatic activity included a meeting between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

"The number of Russian forces is going up. The warning time for a possible attack is going down," Stoltenberg said at a news conference with Johnson.

"Renewed Russian aggression will lead to more NATO presence, not less," he added.

But Johnson stressed after a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda -- one of Ukraine's strongest allies in Europe -- that Western states must "tirelessly pursue the path of diplomacy".



NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
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NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)

NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war.

The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.”

Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday's Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro.

In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech to his nation that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia.

"The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow's talking points, suggesting the use of US-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement.

“These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orban said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.”

Orban cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick... there will be consequences,” he said.

Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday's missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.”

At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.”

He underlined that the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine.

Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv.

In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile, whose name in Russian means “hazelnut tree,” was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six nonnuclear warheads each carrying six submunitions and reached a spoeed of Mach 11, it said.

Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles (6 1/2 kilometers) southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad.

The stricken area was cordoned off and out of public view. With no fatalities reported from the attack, Dnipro residents resorted to dark humor on social media, mostly focused on the missile’s name, Oreshnik.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia struck a residential district of Sumy overnight with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, killing two people and injuring 13, the regional administration said..

Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the drones were stuffed with shrapnel elements. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.