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Russia blamed US ‘hysteria’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon need for war’ for possible invasion of Ukraine, after an intelligence report stated that Vladimir Putin plans to launch an attack on the country on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is currently on a call with Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov to discuss the crisis, after “extremely detailed” invasion plans seen by the Secret Service, the CIA and the Pentagon, fueled fears of war in Eastern Europe.
To thousands of British, American and other citizens Europeans, including many embassy employees, have been told to leave Ukraine as they were warned there would be no evacuation. n military after a Russian attack.
Blinken said today that the crisis had reached a “turning point”, adding that there remain “signs very worrying of Russian escalation”, including new forces arriving at Ukraine’s borders.
But the fears of the West were branded as ‘alarmist’ and a symptom of American ‘hysteria’ by important Russian figures on Saturday, just as Putin launched military drills in Belarus and the Black Sea.
The country’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, wrote on Telegram: “The hysteria in the White House is more revealing than ever. The Anglo-Saxons need a war. At all costs.
“Provocations, disinformation and threats are their favorite method to solve their own problems”.
However, at the same time, he revealed that Russia was reducing the diplomatic staff in Ukraine, because it feared the “ provocations” by the Kiev authorities or “third countries”, in another alarming sign that an invasion is coming.
suspected that Russia could use the pro-Russian areas controlled by the rebels as an excuse to send troops.
Zakharova added: “Following possible provocations by part of the Kiev regime or third countries, in fact, we have made a decision on some optimization of the personnel of the Russian missions in Ukraine.
“We want to emphasize that our embassy and consulates will continue to carry out their basic functions”.
The emb The US embassy in Kiev will be operating with minimal equipment after it ordered all non-emergency personnel to leave on Saturday “due to the continuing threat of Russian military action.”
Despite growing fears, Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, told Newsweek magazine that warnings of an invasion were “alarmist.” and repeated that his country “would not attack anyone.”
But for the German newspaper Der Spiegel, the plans for the ‘invasion of the 16 of February’ were deemed credible as transmitted to the Biden administration, before being sufficiently discussed in a series of secret briefings with NATO allies .
They are said to contain specific routes that individual Russian units could take and detail what roles they might play in the conflict.
Der Speigel sug He wants the United States to consider whether to make the plans public in an attempt to undermine them.
The White House confirmed that Biden and Putin would discuss the crisis over the phone, just hours after the thousands of Britons and Americans to get out of Ukraine today while they could, just as tensions reached boiling point amid fears that Putin could launch an aerial bombardment of Kiev, risking a high civilian death toll.
The Netherlands, Kuwait, Germany and several other countries have now told their citizens to leave, including Belgium, which warned on Saturday that there would be no “guarantee of evacuation” and a “sudden follow-up”, since “communication links including the Internet and telephone lines could be severely affected’ and air travel hampered.
The images published today m Russian and Belarusian forces are shown testing snow-camouflaged ‘hurricane’ and ‘tornado’ rocket launch systems, while a major Russian sea drill, with deadly warships, was launched into the Black Sea.
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