WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden urged Americans Thursday to leave Ukraine immediately, as a direct Russian fire exercise and a buildup of troops around the Ex-Soviet countries estimated the invasion.
Washington-Moscow’s tension was at their highest since the Cold War, with some US estimates said about 130,000 Russian troops were grouped in tens of combat brigades near the border with Ukraine.
“Americans must leave now,” said Biden in a pre-recorded interview with NBC news.
“We deal with one of the largest soldiers in the world. This is a very different situation and everything can go crazy quickly.”
Biden stressed that in any circumstances he would send US forces to Ukraine, even to save Americans in the event of a Russian invasion.
“It’s a world war. When Americans and Russians begin to shoot, we are in a very different world,” he said.
Biden’s statement was released a few hours after Russia rolled the tanks in Belarus for Live fire exercises that attracted an unpleasant warning from NATO and added urgency to Western efforts to prevent war on the continent of the Bupsia.
NATO said the spread of Russian missiles, heavy armor and the army pistol marked the “dangerous moment” for Europe about three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Western leaders have gone to Moscow in an effort to maintain open communication lines, giving Russia the opportunity to accept his complaint about NATO’s expansion to Eastern European countries and former Soviets.
But they also tried to project their determination in the face of Russian escalation from a tense situation.
“Russia should not underestimate our unity and determination as partners in the EU and as allies in NATO,” the German Chancellor’s warning Olaf Scholz.
In an effort to “reduce the possibility of calculation errors” during training, the head of the US defense and Belarus held a rare telephone conversation, said Pentagon on Thursday.
Russia has also sent six warships through the Bosphorus for naval exercises in the Black Sea and the nearby Azov Sea.
Kyiv condemns their presence as an effort “unprecedented” to cut Ukraine from both sea.
Moscow and Minsk have not revealed how many participating troops, but the United States said about 30,000 soldiers were sent to Belarus from the location including the far east of Russia.
– ‘Disappointed’ –
The Russian Ministry of Defense stressed that the exercises would be centered on “suppressing external aggression” and the Kremlin had promised to go home after training.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “the accumulation of strength on the border is psychological pressure from our neighbors”.
Kyiv has launched its own military training which is expected to reflect Russian games, but officials say a little about them for fear of increasing tension.
Russia is looking for a written guarantee that NATO will draw its presence from Eastern Europe and have never expanded to Ukraine.
The United States and NATO officially rejected Russian demands.
But Washington drifted the idea of those who attacked a new disarmament agreement for Europe – the offer was seen dramatically by Moscow.
British foreign secretary Liz Truss was the latest Western diplomat to travel to Moscow on Thursday, where he reported accepting promises from the Timper of Sergei Lavrov that the Kremlin had no plans to attack Ukraine.
“We need to see those words following up with action,” he told reporters after the conversation.
But Lavrov said he was “disappointed” by talks, said military training and the movement of troops in the Russian region itself had spurred “unexpicable alarms and emotions that were strong enough from our British colleagues and other Western representatives”.