Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked journalists to provide proof of Russia’s supposed imminent plans to launch a full-scale invasion of his country.
“There has been too much information about a full-scale war with Russia – even specific dates have been announced. We understand there are risks. If you have any additional information regarding the 100 percent guaranteed invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 16 February, please give it to us,” Zelensky told reporters on Saturday.
Zelensky said he did not believe in the danger of a full-scale war at the moment. “I have to speak to the public with real information at hand. We receive information from many sources. We also have an intelligence service. I don’t think that it’s any worse than the intelligence services of other countries,” he noted.
The Ukrainian president added that his country must be prepared for hostile steps coming “from any border.”
Tick Tock
Zelensky’s remarks follow reporting by Politico on Friday that Russia could start a multi-front invasion of Ukraine “as soon as February 16,” with President Biden said to have informed America’s European allies about these plans. The same day, a PBS reporter claimed multiple “US, Western and defence officials” had told him that Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a firm decision to invade Ukraine, with the incursion, whose end goal could be “regime change,” expected to start “next week.”
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan dismissed the “invasion order” claims in a briefing later Friday, but poured gasoline on the incursion panic dumpster fire by urging all Americans to leave Ukraine within 48 hours. “We are in the window when an invasion could begin at any time, should Vladimir Putin decide to order it,” Sullivan said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry slammed Western media over the latest “invasion” claims, accusing outlets of spreading “blatant misinformation” and engaging in “manipulations in order to introduce the thesis about Moscow’s aggressive intentions into public opinion.”
The US media’s “16 February” invasion deadline claims follow a separate media scandal last week after Bloomberg set up a live feed suggesting that a Russian assault on Ukraine had already begun. Also last week, State Department Spokesman Ned Price and AP White House correspondent Matt Lee got into a bitter back-and-forth debate after Price claimed that Russia was preparing to create a video fake of atrocities by the Ukrainian army to justify an invasion, but refused to provide any evidence, instead asking media to just take his word for it.
The State Department urged all non-emergency personnel at the Embassy in Kiev to leave the country on Saturday, citing “continued reports of a Russian military buildup on the border with Ukraine, indicating potential for significant military action.”
Russia announced that it was “optimising” staff at diplomatic facilities in Kiev the same day, citing the danger of provocations.
In his remarks on Saturday, Zelensky expressed bewilderment over the evacuations of diplomats and said that political and diplomatic efforts should be made to defuse tensions.
The Ukrainian president’s blunt comments about the alleged Russian “invasion danger” follows weeks of reporting that he has expressed concerns in private to his handlers in Washington that the US was "deliberately overplaying" rhetoric about an escalation with Russia.
Late last month, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov assured that the Russian military has “not created a strike group that could carry out an invasion.” Separately, Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council chief Oleksiy Danilov slammed media for putting out “a lot of military fiction” about Russia’s alleged plans, and said the bigger danger lay with Ukraine's political destabilisation.