US intelligence finds Russia planning Ukraine offensive

By AAMER MADHANI, ELLEN KNICKMEYER, NOMAAN MERCHANT and ALEXANDRA JAFFE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden pledged connected Friday to marque it “very, precise difficult” for Russia’s Vladimir Putin to instrumentality subject enactment successful Ukraine arsenic U.S. quality officials determined that Russian readying is underway for a imaginable subject violative that could statesman arsenic soon arsenic aboriginal 2022.

The caller quality uncovering estimates that the Russians are readying to deploy an estimated 175,000 troops and astir fractional of them are already deployed on assorted points adjacent Ukraine’s border, according to a Biden medication authoritative who spoke connected the information of anonymity to sermon the finding.

It comes arsenic Russia has picked up its demands connected Biden to warrant that Ukraine volition not beryllium allowed to articulation the NATO alliance.

The authoritative added that the plans telephone for the question of 100 battalion tactical groups on with armor, artillery and equipment.

Intelligence officials besides person seen an uptick successful Russian propaganda efforts done the usage of proxies and media outlets to denigrate Ukraine and NATO up of a imaginable invasion, the authoritative said.

Asked astir the quality uncovering arsenic helium acceptable retired for the statesmanlike retreat astatine Camp David connected Friday evening, Biden reiterated his concerns astir Russian provocations.

“We’ve been alert of Russia’s actions for a agelong clip and my anticipation is we’re gonna person a agelong treatment with Putin,” Biden said.

The risks of specified a gambit for Putin, if helium really went done with an invasion, would beryllium enormous.

U.S. officials and erstwhile U.S. diplomats accidental portion Putin intelligibly is laying the groundwork for a imaginable invasion, Ukraine’s subject is amended equipped and prepared contiguous than successful past years, and the sanctions threatened by the West would bash superior harm to Russia’s economy. It remains unclear if Putin intends to spell done with what would beryllium a risky offensive, they say.

Earlier Friday, Biden pledged to marque it “very, precise difficult” for Putin to instrumentality subject enactment successful Ukraine and said caller initiatives coming from his medication are intended to deter Russian aggression.

“What I americium doing is putting unneurotic what I judge to beryllium volition beryllium the astir broad and meaningful acceptable of initiatives to marque it very, precise hard for Mr. Putin to spell up and bash what radical are disquieted helium whitethorn do,” Biden told reporters.

The Kremlin said Friday that Putin would question binding guarantees precluding NATO’s enlargement to Ukraine during the telephone with Biden. But Biden sought to caput disconnected the demand.

“I don’t judge anyone’s reddish line,” Biden said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials besides warned that Russia could invade adjacent month. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told lawmakers Friday that the fig of Russian troops adjacent Ukraine and successful Russia-annexed Crimea is estimated astatine 94,300, informing that a “large-scale escalation” is imaginable successful January. U.S. quality officials estimation person to 70,000 troops are deployed adjacent the border, according to an unclassified quality papers obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

The quality findings were archetypal reported by The Washington Post.

There are signs that the White House and Kremlin are adjacent to arranging a speech adjacent week betwixt Biden and Putin. Putin’s overseas affairs advisor Yuri Ushakov told reporters Friday that arrangements person been made for a Putin-Biden telephone successful the coming days, adding that the day volition beryllium announced aft Moscow and Washington finalize details. The Russians accidental a day has been agreed upon, but declined to accidental when.

Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy person besides tentatively agreed to person a telephone adjacent week, according to a idiosyncratic adjacent to the Ukrainian president who was not authorized to talk publically and spoke connected information of anonymity.

White House property caput Jen Psaki said medication officials person “engaged successful the possibility” of a Biden-Putin call. White House officials did not respond to a petition for remark connected the expected Zelenskyy call.

“It surely would beryllium an accidental to sermon our superior concerns astir the bellicose rhetoric, astir the subject buildup that we’re seeing connected the borderline of Ukraine,” Psaki said of a imaginable Biden-Putin call.

Biden did not item what actions helium was weighing. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met Thursday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken successful Sweden, said the U.S. has threatened caller sanctions. He did not item the imaginable sanctions but suggested the effort would not beryllium effective.

“If the caller ‘sanctions from hell’ come, we volition respond,” Lavrov said. “We can’t neglect to respond.”

Psaki said the medication would look to coordinate with European allies if it moved guardant with sanctions. She noted that bitter memories of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that had been nether Ukraine’s power since 1954, are beforehand of caput arsenic the White House considers the mode forward.

“We cognize what President Putin has done successful the past,” Psaki said. “We spot that helium is putting successful spot the capableness to instrumentality enactment successful abbreviated order.”

Deep differences were connected show during the Blinken-Lavrov meeting, with the Russia authoritative charging the West was “playing with fire” by denying Russia a accidental successful immoderate further NATO enlargement into countries of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Zelenskyy has pushed for Ukraine to articulation the alliance, which holds retired the committedness of rank but hasn’t acceptable a a timeline.

Blinken this week said the U.S. has “made it wide to the Kremlin that we volition respond resolutely, including with a scope of high-impact economical measures that we’ve refrained from utilizing successful the past.”

He did not item what sanctions were being weighed, but 1 perchance could beryllium to chopped disconnected Russia from the SWIFT strategy of planetary payments. The European Union’s Parliament approved a nonbinding solution successful April to chopped disconnected Russia from SWIFT if its troops entered Ukraine.

Such a determination would spell acold toward blocking Russian businesses from the planetary fiscal system. Western allies reportedly considered specified a measurement successful 2014 and 2015, during earlier Russian-led escalations of tensions implicit Ukraine.

Then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said it would beryllium tantamount to “a declaration of war.”

But immoderate U.S. authorities officials accidental Putin besides could beryllium seeking attraction and concessions from Biden and different Western leaders, utilizing the subject escalation to unit Russia backmost into a cardinal relation successful satellite affairs arsenic it had successful the days of the Soviet Union.

“They are earnestly envious for superpower presumption and … the parity to the United States that existed during the Cold War. That’s what this is each about,” said John Herbst, a erstwhile U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

An penetration is possible, but much likely, “they provoke a crisis, they get concessions from us, and past they trim the crisis. Right? And that, I think, is astir apt their objective,” Herbst said Friday.

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Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov and Dasha Litvinova successful Moscow contributed reporting.