Biden urges Americans to leave Ukraine as fears of Russian invasion mount

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden urged Americans to leave Ukraine immediately, as his top diplomat said on Friday that a Russian invasion could come "any time" -- including during the Winter Olympics, which end in nine days.

With Moscow continuing to amass tens of thousands of troops on the Ukraine border, and talks to avoid war making little headway, Biden issued a stark warning for US citizens to get out. "American citizens should leave, should leave now," Biden told NBC News. "We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. This is a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly."

On the other side of the world in Melbourne, his Secretary of State Antony Blinken huddled with Asia-Pacific allies, stressing that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be days, or even hours away from launching a war in continental Europe.

"We’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time, and to be clear that includes during the Olympics," Blinken said, brushing aside suggestions that the veteran Russian leader would wait until the Beijing Games end on February 20 to avoid upstaging his Chinese allies.

"Simply put, we continue to see very troubling signs of Russian escalation," Blinken said. Observers have described the gathering of Russian forces on three of Ukraine’s flanks as the largest show of force since the Soviet Army marched on Berlin at the end of World War II.

Some US estimates put the number of Russian soldiers at 130,000, grouped in dozens of combat brigades. On Thursday, Russia rolled its tanks across Belarus for live-fire drills. Washington has said that around 30,000 soldiers were involved, coming from locations that included Russia’s Far East.

Russia has also sent six warships through the Bosphorus for naval drills on the Black Sea and the neighboring Sea of Azov. Kyiv condemned their presence as an "unprecedented" attempt to cut off Ukraine from both seas.

Kyiv has launched its own military drills expected to mirror Russia’s games, but officials have said little about them out of apparent fear of escalating tensions. With the drumbeat of war growing louder, the already intense push by European leaders to find a diplomatic solution gained a new sense of urgency.

Russia is seeking written guarantees that Nato will withdraw its presence from eastern Europe and never expand into Ukraine. The United States and its European allies have officially rejected Russia’s demands.

"Difficult talks" between German, Russian, Ukrainian and French representatives broke late Thursday, with the quartet agreeing to meet again in March. Blinken insisted that the United States "would strongly prefer to resolve the differences" with Russia "through diplomacy".

"We’ve made every possible effort to engage Russia," he said. "But at the same time, we’ve been very clear in building deterrence and building defense and making it clear to Russia that if it chooses the path of renewed aggression, it will face massive consequences."

The US military said on Friday it was repositioning a squadron of F-16 war planes from Germany to Romania, "to reinforce regional security" in the midst of flaring tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

Without specifying how many F-16s were being moved, the command of the US Air Forces in Europe said the planes would arrive Friday at the Romanian air base of Fetesti, less than 60 miles from the Black Sea, where they will join Italian combat aircraft that are already deployed there.

The aircraft and crews will "work closely with allies in the Black Sea region to reinforce regional security during the current tensions caused by Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine," the US command, which is based in Germany, said in a statement.

They will be responsible in particular for protecting Nato airspace in the region close to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

On Thursday, the US Air Force announced the arrival in Britain of B-52 strategic bombers for "long-planned" maneuvers, while the US Navy announced the deployment in the European theater of four destroyers to reinforce the US Sixth Fleet. US President Joe Biden has sent 3,000 US troops to Germany, Poland and Romania to bolster allies on Nato’s eastern flank, as Western states fear a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The move comes as Russia began large-scale military drills in Belarus, right on the border with Ukraine, which is at the centre of high tensions between Russia and the West, and as intense diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis appear to be making little headway.