Some airlines canceled flights to the Ukrainian capital and troops there unloaded fresh shipments of weapons from NATO members Sunday, as its president sought to project confidence in the face of U.S. warnings of possible invasion within days by a growing number of Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to President Joe Biden for about an hour, insisting that Ukrainians had the country under “safe and reliable protection” against feared attack by a far stronger Russian military, aides said afterward.
The White House said both agreed to keep pushing both deterrence and diplomacy to try to stave off a feared Russian military offensive. The Biden administration has become increasingly outspoken about its concerns that Russia will stage an incident in the coming days that would create a false pretext for an invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. and European intelligence findings in recent days have sparked worries that Russia may try to target a scheduled Ukrainian military exercise slated for Tuesday in eastern Ukraine to launch such a “false-flag operation,” according to two people familiar with the matter.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it. American intelligence officials believe targeting the military exercise is just one of multiple options that Russia has weighed as a possibility for a false-flag operation.
The White House has underscored that they do not know with certainty if President Vladimir Putin has made a final determination to launch an invasion. Moscow’s forces are massing on Ukraine’s north, east, and south in what the Kremlin insists are military exercises.
Meanwhile, Russia’s enormous military buildup near Ukraine features some of its most potent weapon systems and provides the Kremlin with the means to attack Ukrainian forces from multiple directions, which likely would overstretch their defenses. In its buildup, which has quickened in recent weeks, Russia has positioned forces on three sides of Ukraine: in Belarus, western Russia, and Crimea and on naval vessels in the Black Sea.
The forces include some of Russia’s best-trained battalions, special forces, and surface-to-surface missiles that could strike targets throughout Ukraine. Russia’s deployments provide its commander’s formidable advantages. They include the capability to make rapid thrusts toward Ukraine’s capital, seize swaths of territory, take command of the skies and blockade the country’s ports, current and former U.S. officials said.
