Category Archives: Ukraine

Macron hopes for ‘historic solution’ to Ukraine crisis ahead of Putin meeting

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French leader, who will travel to Kyiv on Tuesday, is optimistic he can secure peace, despite the US saying Russia could invade ‘tomorrow’

French president Emmanuel Macron believes he can deliver “a historic solution” to the Ukraine crisis ahead of his arrival in Moscow for talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

After a flurry of diplomatic activity that included talks with US president Joe Biden this weekend and three phone calls with Putin, Macron will land in Moscow on Monday seeking a “de-escalation” of the tense standoff on Ukraine’s eastern borders.

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Russia has enough troops ready to take Kyiv, says former Ukraine defence chief

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White House believes Moscow has amassed at least 70% of firepower needed for mid-February invasion

Russia has enough troops in place to seize Kyiv or another Ukrainian city but not yet for a full takeover and occupation of the country, Ukraine’s former defence minister has said, as Washington warned that an invasion could take place at any time.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk said in an interview with the Guardian that the situation looked “pretty dire”. “Russia could now seize any city in Ukraine. But we still don’t see the 200,000 troops needed for a full-scale invasion,” he said.

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Biden rattles his sabre at Putin … but it’s Xi he really wants to scare

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Tub-thumping talk of all-out war in Ukraine seems overblown but the White House knows the fledgling Sino-Russian axis is a real threat, in Taiwan and elsewhere

If, as seems increasingly probable, Russia decides not to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine, tub-thumping US and British politicians who have spent weeks scaring the public with loose talk of looming Armageddon will have some explaining to do.

The military build-up directed by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is real enough. But suspicion grows that the actual as opposed to the hypothetical threat of a large-scale conventional attack is being mis-read, misinterpreted, over-estimated or deliberately exaggerated.

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Ukraine crisis: Russia has in place 70% of military needed for full invasion – US officials

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Fears an attack could lead to 50,000 casualties as US troops arrive in Poland and French and German leaders prepare to visit Kyiv and Moscow

Russia has assembled at least 70% of the military firepower it intends to have in place by the middle of February to give President Vladimir Putin the option of launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, US officials have said.

On Saturday, officials warned that a full Russian invasion could lead to the quick capture of Kyiv and potentially result in as many as 50,000 civilians killed or wounded, according to the New York Times and Washington Post. A US official confirmed that estimate to the Associated Press but it is not clear how US agencies determined those numbers.

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Record Covid cases in Russia and Ukraine complicate military plans

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Spread of Omicron variant cited as another factor that could determine whether Moscow launches offensive

The Omicron variant is causing record numbers of new Covid infections in Russia and Ukraine, threatening to impact military calculations over Russia’s continued troop buildup.

Analysts have cited various factors as possible contributors to whether and how Russia will launch an assault on Ukraine, ranging from Vladimir Putin’s psychological state to the strength of the western response and even the firmness of the ground during a mild winter in the region.

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Ministers accused of failing to stem flow of Russian ‘dirty money’ into UK

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Anti-corruption activists criticise government inaction in face of years of Kremlin provocation

Britain’s efforts to halt the flow of Russian “dirty money” into the UK have been called into question in the aftermath of a threat by the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, to hit Kremlin-linked oligarchs with economic sanctions if Ukraine is attacked.

Labour and anti-corruption campaigners this week accused the government of failing to curtail Russian wealth and influence in Britain, despite years of provocative actions from the Kremlin.

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‘Almost invisible’: Germans lose patience with Olaf Scholz as he hesitates on Ukraine

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The new chancellor has faced criticism abroad for his stance, and is now coming under fire at home

Germany’s new chancellor Olaf Scholz is waving goodbye to the honeymoon period of his tenure, as his “inaudible” stance over the brewing crisis on the Ukrainian border is failing to impress not just Russia-hawks abroad but also more ambivalent voters at home.

Scholz, whose liberal-left “traffic light” coalition was sworn in less than two months ago, has been criticised by Kyiv and other east-central European capitals for sticking to his country’s restrictive stance on weapons export to crisis regions and looking slow to spell out the potential sanctions that could be triggered by a Russian invasion into Ukraine.

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Russia plans ‘very graphic’ fake video as pretext for Ukraine invasion, US claims

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Officials say they have evidence of plot to mock up scenes of attack using corpses, Turkish-made drones and actors playing mourners

US officials claim they have evidence of a Russian plan to make a “very graphic” fake video of a Ukrainian attack as a pretext for an invasion.

The alleged plot would involve using corpses, footage of blown-up buildings, fake Ukrainian military hardware, Turkish-made drones and actors playing the part of Russian-speaking mourners.

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‘We will defend our country’: Ukraine’s border guards brace for Russian assault

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While some locals at Belarusian border see no cause for concern, troops and tanks are ready to swing into action

Standing next to the snowy Belarusian border, Vladyslav Gorban showed off Ukraine’s latest defences against Russian attack. New wooden posts topped with coils of gleaming razor wire ran alongside a slush-covered road. There was a shallow defensive ditch, dug some time ago, and a yellow and blue customs post. Plus a dog, used to sniff out narcotics.

Gorban, a border guard, admitted Russian tanks would be able to smash through this flimsy ensemble of barricades and continue towards Kyiv, 140 miles away. But he had a warning. “If the Russians come, they can expect a nasty surprise,” he said, hinting at the new portable anti-tank weapons sent by the UK to Ukraine’s embattled pro-western government.

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Xi-Putin summit: Russia inches closer to China as ‘new cold war’ looms

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Fifty years after Nixon and Mao’s historic handshake, the geopolitical world order is again being reshaped

When the leaders of China and Russia meet in Beijing this Friday shortly before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, observers of the bilateral relationship will be looking for insights into how this 21st century quasi-alliance is reshaping the postwar world order.

It was 50 years ago this month, on 21 February 1972, that the historic handshake between Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong changed the geometry of the cold war. Historians called the visit “the week that changed the world”. It later influenced Washington’s subsequent movement towards détente with Moscow.

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Ukraine crisis: Russia criticises US military moves as ‘destructive step’

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Moscow says US deployments in eastern Europe increase tensions, as Nato says Russia has moved 30,000 troops to Belarus

The US decision to deploy more than 3,000 US troops in Germany, Poland and Romania is a “destructive step” that makes it harder to reach a compromise over Ukraine, Russia’s deputy foreign minister has said, as Moscow continues to build up its forces.

Alexander Grushko said the move by the US president, Joe Biden, would “increase military tension and reduce scope for political decision”, and would “delight” Ukrainian authorities, who would continue sabotaging the Minsk agreement “with impunity”. The Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 were designed to reach a political settlement in the east of Ukraine, including greater autonomy.

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Don’t panic: why Ukraine doesn’t like western talk of imminent attack

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Analysis: While Putin’s intentions remain unclear, Kyiv would rather it didn’t get classed as the next Kabul

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has again insisted that Russia does not currently have enough troops in place to mount a further invasion of Ukraine, a day after Boris Johnson travelled to Kyiv and said there was a “clear and present danger” of an imminent military campaign.

Even taken together, the troops currently massed on Ukraine’s border with Russia, on the annexed Crimea peninsula and in neighbouring Belarus, are “insufficient for a large-scale military operation”, said Kuleba in a briefing for foreign journalists on Wednesday.

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Ukraine crisis: Biden to deploy more US troops to eastern Europe

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More than 3,000 troops headed to Germany, Poland and Romania after talks between Washington and Moscow failed to ease tensions

Joe Biden will deploy more than 3,000 US troops in Germany, Poland, and Romania, as Russia continues to build up its forces around Ukraine, and after talks between Washington and Moscow failed to bring any breakthrough or easing of tensions.

Nearly 2,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne division will be going to Poland, a headquarters unit from the 18th Airborne Corps will move to Germany, and a 1,000-strong army armoured unit is being transferred from Germany to Romania.

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‘Clear and present danger’: Boris Johnson warns of imminent Russian campaign in Ukraine – video

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A Russian invasion of Ukraine would end in a humanitarian, political and military disaster for Russia and the world, Boris Johnson has warned as he stood alongside the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv, saying the UK would be judged by the level of help it gave to Ukraine

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Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a disaster, says Boris Johnson in Kyiv

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PM joins Volodymyr Zelenskiy to spell out consequences of Russian aggression and declare UK will be judged by the level of its support

A Russian invasion of Ukraine would end in a humanitarian, political and military disaster for Russia and the world, Boris Johnson has warned as he stood alongside the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv, saying the UK would be judged by the level of help it gave to Ukraine.

On a flying visit to the Ukrainian capital, he denied the US and the UK were exaggerating the scale of the Russian threat, saying they were not trying to “big up” the intelligence. “The grim reality” was that Russian troops were “massing on Ukraine’s border. This is a clear and present danger,” he said, addingthat the troop concentration was “perhaps the biggest demonstration of hostility to Ukraine in our lifetimes”, saying it dwarfed the Russian forces mounted before the invasion in 2014.

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From eastern Europe we watch Ukraine in fear. Its fate could decide the continent’s future

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Past trauma means we worry about Russia reclaiming its cold war sphere of influence and that the west will again abandon us

Two points about the Ukraine crisis are crystal clear. First, Vladimir Putin wishes to reimpose Russian control over Ukraine, whatever the price. His political dream of restoring the Soviet sphere of influence is echoed in a wishlist of “security guarantees” presented to western governments by Russia in December 2021. Nato, he maintains, should return to the pre-1997 state of affairs; Russia, apparently, need not.

Second, whatever Putin decides in the current crisis, there are real fears in central and eastern Europe that settled borders are now under threat. These fears are grounded in reason. What seemed unrealistic in the immediate post-cold war years is now again a real possibility. Questions about our collective safety and security have returned, along with memories of a traumatic and not so remote past.

Karolina Wigura is a historian of ideas, board member of the Kultura Liberalna Foundation in Warsaw and a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin

Jarosław Kuisz is a political analyst and essayist, editor-in-chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and a policy fellow at the University of Cambridge

Guardian Newsroom: Will Russia invade Ukraine? Join Mark Rice-Oxley, Andrew Roth, Luke Harding, Nataliya Gumenyuk and Orysia Lutsevych discussing the developments with Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday 8 February, 8pm GMT | 9pm CET | midday PDT | 3pm EDT. Book tickets here

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Biden says US is ‘ready no matter what happens’ as Russia escalates threat on Ukraine – as it happened

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Donald Trump is being widely accused of “saying the quiet part loud”, when protesting that Mike Pence could have “overturned” his boss’s election defeat by Joe Biden.

Though he has appeared to admit Biden won before, Trump usually insists he won and his opponent stole the election through voter fraud – the “big lie” which animates rallies like one in Conroe, Texas, on Saturday.

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Moscow warns Ukraine may ‘destroy itself’ as Russia and US clash at UN

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At a UNSC meeting, Russian diplomat Vasily Nebenzya claimed Ukraine’s violation of the Minsk pact could end in ‘worst way’

Ukraine will be responsible for its own destruction if it undermines existing peace agreements, a senior Russian diplomat has warned at a UN security council debate on the crisis.

The warning from Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, during a combative council session, came on a day of continued high-level diplomacy aimed at defusing the Ukraine crisis. The state department confirmed it had received a response from Moscow to a document the US delivered in Moscow last week, formally outlining areas where the Biden administration believes the two countries could find common ground. US officials would not disclose the contents of the Russian letter, saying they would not “negotiate in public”.

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US to target Putin’s inner circle with sanctions in event of Ukraine invasion

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Washington official says sanctions list will comprise oligarchs and their family members

Washington and its allies have prepared a list of Russian elites in or near Vladimir Putin’s inner circle who would be hit with economic sanctions if the Kremlin were to order an invasion of Ukraine, according to a US briefing.

The language in the briefing by a US official to Reuters is notably similar to that used on Sunday by the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who said Britain would introduce legislation to allow banks, energy companies and “oligarchs close to the Kremlin” to be targeted by London, and makes clear the targeting is coordinated internationally.

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Ukraine crisis live: face-off expected at UN security council meeting; US makes list of Russian elites to face sanctions

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Washington to address ‘Russian aggression’, which Moscow dismisses as ‘PR stunt’; US prepares list of Russians linked to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle

The US and the UK, home to leading financial centres, are clearly gearing up to announce a coordinated effort to target members of the Russian elite with economic sanctions if the Kremlin orders an invasion of Ukraine.

The language from today’s US briefing – that economic sanctions will target Russian elite members “in or near the inner circles of the Kremlin” – is almost identical to that used by British foreign secretary Liz Truss on Sunday.

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