Biden Convenes Nato and EU Leaders as US Warns Russian Invasion of Ukraine Could Come 'at Any Time'

On Friday, 11 February 2022, Joe Biden got on a hastily arranged call with fellow Nato and EU leaders, after a meeting in the White House situation room on the latest intelligence about Russia's military buildup near Ukraine. Diplomats said that intelligence had raised the level of alarm inside his administration.

The White House said the purpose was to discuss shared concerns about the continued buildup of Russian forces around Ukraine, and to keep coordinating on both diplomacy and deterrence. A European diplomat said the US had asked for the urgent call, which also included the heads of the EU council and commission, because it seemed Washington had new intelligence it wanted to share, and that this had made it skittish.

Secretary of state Antony Blinken described very troubling signs of Russian escalation. He said an invasion could begin at any time, and made clear that this included the period of the Winter Olympics, which end on 20 February.

The numbers behind the warning came from Norway. Vice-Admiral Nils Andreas Stensønes, head of the Norwegian intelligence service, said Russia now had 150,000 troops massed around Ukraine. He said the decision on whether to attack rested with Vladimir Putin, and that it was difficult to call it probable or improbable because it was solely the Russian president's choice. In his assessment, Russia had what it needed for anything from a minor invasion in the east, to small attacks at various points in Ukraine, to a complete invasion that might include occupying all or part of the country.

Western intelligence agencies largely agree that Putin has put enough troops in place to attempt an invasion, a view reflected in warnings from Biden and the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, in the previous 24 hours. They still believe he has made no final decision. Several scenarios are considered possible, but the prevailing belief is that any intervention would aim at regime change in Kyiv: a lightning attack to encircle the capital, force the collapse of President Zelenskiy's government and install a pro-Russian one without urban warfare.

Johnson said on Thursday that an invasion would be a massive miscalculation, because Ukraine would fight and resist very strongly. British ministers stress that any Kremlin belief that Russian intervention would be welcomed by more than a tiny minority is mistaken.

The heightened alert follows a run of diplomatic efforts that produced no breakthrough. Reports suggested much of Emmanuel Macron's more than five hours of talks with Putin in Moscow on Monday was taken up by long historical lectures from the Russian leader, with little substance on current events. German officials described the Normandy format talks in Berlin, involving Russian, Ukrainian, German and French officials, as difficult and offering no prospect of easing tensions. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due in Moscow on Tuesday, though his spokesman said he was carrying no new diplomatic initiatives. Britain's defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said that after meeting his counterpart Sergei Shoigu in Moscow he was assured Russia had no intention of invading. He had told Shoigu that an invasion would have tragic consequences, and said it was vital to leave no room for miscommunication or miscalculation.

Ukraine, for its part, invoked a clause of the Vienna document, an international agreement on military transparency, demanding that Russia give information within 48 hours about its manoeuvres in neighbouring Belarus. Michael Roth, who chairs the Bundestag's foreign affairs committee, wrote on Twitter that Russia had effectively annexed Belarus militarily, that the so-called exercises amounted to encirclement of Ukraine, and that they posed a concrete threat to Poland and the Baltic states.

Speaking in Melbourne, Blinken said the stakes extend beyond Europe. If the principles at issue were challenged with impunity, he said, it would have an impact in Asia too, where the US and its allies increasingly confront China, and others were watching how the world responded. He called for doing everything possible through diplomacy to avert conflict, while being resolute if Russia renews its aggression. The next markers are Scholz's Tuesday visit to Moscow and whether Russia answers Ukraine's 48-hour demand on Belarus.