US President Biden Still Fears Invasion
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON/MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) –
U.S. President Joe Biden warns that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is possible, and an American security source tells Worthy News “there is already war” despite Moscow’s claims of a troops withdrawal.
President Biden urged Moscow on Tuesday to realize that military action against Ukraine would launch “a war of choice, and a war without cause or reason.”
The president spoke hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that some of roughly 150,000 troops pulled back from their positions near the borders with Ukraine. Biden said such news “would be good, but we have not verified that.”
A high-ranking U.S. security diplomat with close knowledge about the military operations told Worthy News that “only perhaps 20,000 Russian troops left.”
However, “these are forces who would have been withdrawn anyway as they have low morale,” he added.
The security source, speaking with Worthy News exclusively on several occasions, said that “there is a war already” with Russian special forces in eastern Ukraine.
RUSSIAN MERCENARIES
He said Russian mercenaries including from the paramilitary Wagner group, were in eastern Ukraine. “They [Moscow] want to create a pretext for an invasion, by even attacking pro-Russian separatists fighting there,” he claimed. “Potentially, an invasion towards Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is still a possibility even towards the end of the Winter Olympics. But Putin first wants the Russian parliament to recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine,” the diplomat added.
He referred to two areas in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region taken over by Russian separatists in a conflict that killed 14,000 people. “Putin says he does not want war, but there is already war, and this is just another stage in that conflict. He seeks to split Ukraine not to join NATO just as he did with Georgia’s South Ossetia region and elsewhere. It is part of a very intelligently thought-through plan [to restore the Soviet Union],” the source said.
The U.S. diplomat, with close knowledge about military operations, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. Other media outlets, including Reuters news agency, confirmed Worthy News exclusive reporting citing several security sources Monday.
He noted American forces in Ukraine and “tens of thousands” of U.S. military personnel across Eastern Europe and the Baltics. The White House officially denied sending “combat troops” to Ukraine and spoke about thousands of troops in Eastern Europe.
Biden said he deployed 5,000 additional troops to Central and Eastern Europe to bolster forces of the Western NATO military alliance there. He vowed that the United States would “defend every inch of NATO territory.”
Biden made clear there was no other option to prepare for warfare as “We have not yet verified the Russian military units are returning to their home bases.”
THREAT REMAINS
Indeed, Biden added, “our analysts indicate that they remain very much in a threatening position. And the fact remains, right now, Russia has more than 150,000 troops encircling Ukraine and Belarus along Ukraine’s border, and invasion remains distinctly possible.”
However, the U.S. president told Russians in separate televised remarks that NATO was “not a threat to Russia” despite Kremlin comments to the contrary.
“Ukraine is not threatening Russia. Neither the U.S. nor NATO have missiles in Ukraine. We do not — do not — have plans to put them there as well. We’re not targeting the people of Russia. We do not seek to destabilize Russia,” Biden stressed.
“To the citizens of Russia: You are not our enemy,” the president explained. “And I do not believe you want a bloody, destructive war against Ukraine, a country of people with whom you share such deep ties of family, history, and culture.”
Russia said it had “no intention” to invade Ukraine, which Putin reiterated after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Moscow.
Both men agreed to discuss Moscow’s security concerns further.
But Putin admitted that the West rejected Moscow’s demands to keep Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations out of NATO and halt weapons and deployments near Russian borders. It was not immediately clear Tuesday how these differences would be reconciled. “We do not want war in Europe,” the Russian president stated in Moscow.
He referred to Scholz’s comment that “people of this generation find it hard to imagine war in Europe” some 77 years after the end of World War Two.
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