Leave Ukraine: Biden to Americans
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden urged Americans to leave Ukraine immediately, as his top diplomat said on Friday that a Russian invasion could come “any time” - including during the Winter Olympics, which end in nine days.
With Moscow continuing to amass tens of thousands of troops on the Ukraine border, and talks to avoid war making little headway, Biden issued a stark warning for US citizens to get out.
“American citizens should leave, should leave now,” Biden told NBC News. “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. This is a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”
On the other side of the world in Melbourne, his secretary of state Antony Blinken huddled with Asia-Pacific allies, stressing that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be days, or even hours away from launching a war in continental Europe.
“We’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time, and to be clear that includes during the Olympics,” Blinken said, brushing aside suggestions that the veteran Russian leader would wait until the Beijing Games end on January 20 to avoid upstaging his Chinese allies.
“Simply put, we continue to see very troubling signs of Russian escalation,” Blinken said.
With the drumbeat of war growing louder, the already intense push by European leaders to find a diplomatic solution gained a new sense of urgency.
Russia is seeking written guarantees that Nato will withdraw its presence from eastern Europe and never expand into Ukraine.
“Difficult talks” between German, Russian, Ukrainian and French representatives broke late on Thursday, with the quartet agreeing to meet again in March. In Moscow, British foreign secretary Liz Truss 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”.