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".



United Nations Warily awaits Donald Trump's Return to Power

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
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United Nations Warily awaits Donald Trump's Return to Power

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo

The United Nations has been planning for the possible return of Donald Trump and the cuts to US funding and engagement with world body that are likely to come with his second term as president.
There was a sense of "déjà vu and some trepidation" at the 193-member world body, said one senior Asian diplomat, as Republican Trump won Tuesday's US election over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
"There is also some hope that a transactional administration will engage the UN on some areas even if it were to defund some dossiers. After all, what bigger and better global stage is there than the United Nations?" said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A US retreat at the UN could open the door for China, which has been building its influence in global diplomacy.
Trump has offered few specifics about foreign policy in his second term but supporters say the force of his personality and his "peace through strength" approach will help bend foreign leaders to his will. He has vowed to solve the war in Ukraine and is expected to give strong support to Israel in its conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Among the top concerns at the UN are whether the United States will decide to contribute less money to the world body and withdraw from key multinational institutions and agreements, including the world Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement.
US funding is the immediate worry. Washington is the UN's largest contributor - with China second - accounting for 22% of the core UN budget and 27% of the peacekeeping budget.
A country can be up to two years in arrears before facing the possible repercussion of losing its General Assembly vote.
'EXTREMELY HARD'
Trump came to power last time proposing to cut about a third off US diplomacy and aid budgets, which included steep reductions in funding for UN peacekeeping and international organizations. But Congress, which sets the federal US government budget, pushed back on Trump's proposal.
A UN spokesperson said at the time the proposed cuts would have made it impossible to continue all essential work.
"The UN secretariat has known that they could face a Trump comeback all year. There has been prudent planning behind the scenes on how to manage potential US budget cuts," said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group.
"So (UN Secretary-General Antonio) Guterres and his team are not totally unprepared, but they know the next year will be extremely hard," he said.
Trump's team did not immediately respond to a query about his policy toward the UN after he takes office in January.
During his first term, Trump complained that the US was shouldering an unfair burden of the cost of the UN and pushed for reforms. Washington is traditionally slow to pay and when Trump left office in 2021 the US was in arrears about $600 million for the core budget and $2 billion for peacekeeping.
According to UN figures, President Joe Biden's administration currently owes $995 million for the core UN budget and $862 million for the peacekeeping budget.
"I don't want to pre-empt or speak about policies that may or may not happen, but we work with member states in the way we've always worked with member states," Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Wednesday.
In 2026, the UN Security Council will choose Guterres' successor, a decision in which the Trump administration will hold a veto power.
'GREAT NEWS FOR CHINA'
During Trump's first term, he was critical of the United Nations and wary of multilateralism. He announced plans to quit the World Health Organization, and pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN cultural agency UNESCO, a global climate change accord and the Iran nuclear deal.
When Biden succeeded him in 2021, he rescinded the US decision to withdraw from the WHO and returned the US to UNESCO and the climate agreement. Trump's campaign has said he would quit the climate deal again if he won office.
"It will survive. But, of course, it will probably survive severely undermined," Guterres told Reuters in September of a second withdrawal from the climate pact by Trump.
Ahead of the US election, a senior European diplomat said a Trump win would be "great news for China," recalling that during Trump's first term "the Chinese influence in the UN increased a lot because it was an open bar for the Chinese."
The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Trump again cuts UN funding and withdraws from international pacts "it will just give China the opportunity to present itself as the supporter number one of multilateralism."
US funding for some other UN agencies is also in question. One of the first moves by the Trump administration in 2017 was to cut funding for UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the international body's agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries.
Trump's administration said UNFPA "supports ... a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." The UN said that was an inaccurate perception. Biden restored US funding for UNFPA.
If Trump again cuts funding, UNFPA warned that "women will lose lifesaving services in some of the world's most devastating crises" in places like Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine.
Under Trump's first presidency, the US also opposed long-agreed international language on women's sexual and reproductive rights and health in UN resolutions over concern that it would advance abortion rights.
A senior African diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up the impending return of Trump for multilateralism and the United Nations: "The heavens help us."