intelligence analysts have picked up that we re sending this clear message and it remains a message that we have now been sending for some time. and it is an urgent message because we re in an urgent situation. so you believe that russia has all of the forces that it needs to mount a full-scale invasion of ukraine? it has all of the forces this need for a military action. i m not sure what you mean. but russia could choose in very short order to commence a major military action against ukraine, yes. nato told the president that it will call up the nato response force of americans who have been put on that short leash and is the president prepared to send additional unilateral forces to our partners in the border region of ukraine and is it your judgment of the u.s. intelligence and judgment that putin is behaving as a rational actor in his
different message than we heard publicly before. that vladimir putin could be interested in the seizure of kyiv. there was more detailed here from jake sullivan than we ve heard from anybody in the u.s. government in terms of what might happen and how this plays out. he said this invasion could start with an aerial assault or missile attack that don t differentiate between civilians an military targets and then followed bia ground invasion, that could cut off land lines and then followed by electronic warfare and cyberattacks, all of this, that is how an invasion plays out but it is a very clear warning that right now is the time for u.s. citizens to get out and he even said if you re having financial problems get in touch with the u.s. embassy and they ll help you out because if and when putin makes the decision to invade, there is no guarantee there will be commercial air or way to getoit by train or car so now it is the time to get out. in case putin or russia wants to use that as
that is a possible line of attack, course of action that the russian forces could choose to take. they could also choose to move in other parts of ukraine as well. the last point that i would make and i know this is the subject of a fair amount of back and forth between the administration and the press over the course of the past week, we re firmly convinced that the russians should they decide to move forward with an invasion, are looking hard at the creation of a pretex, a false flag operation. something that they generate and try to blame on the ukrainians as a trigger for military action and we re calling that out publicly because we do believe that if russia chooses to do that, they should be held to account, the world should not believe that a false flag operation, that they conducted, it is a legitimate cause for going into ukraine. you mentioned that you did not want to say that putin has made a decision. but does the united states
he s read out his calls on it with world leaders and meetings, et cetera, but he will continue to speak directly to the american people as we watch the situation unfold. no plans for any kind after dress from the oval office or speech about this issue with prepared remarks? i don t have anything to announce in terms of a speech or prepared remarks at this point. so you and other officials have been transparent in describing the strategy for ukraine. do you believe that strategy is helping to reduce tensions or do you feel that, that may be part of the reason why it is boxing vladimir putin even further in airing your strategy so publicly like this? so only one country has amassed more than 100,000 troops on the border of another country with all of the capabilities and capacity to conduct an invasion. that country is russia. that country is not the united states. so the fastest way to de-escalate this situation for all involved would be for russia
there are 80,000 in poland and r andainia and germany and this is a deployment to deter a russian invasion. he does point out that fighter jets have deployed in eastern europe and that president biden could make the decision to do more as we wait to see if nato chooses to activate its response force. so he laid out the scenario here on the military side and how this could play out. crucially the urgency with which it could play out, it is worth noting here that the one thing that he did not say is what piece of intel or information l.e.d. to this sudden assessment that an invasion could come any day now. that s an interesting piece of information to know. spider, a ground invasion, all the way to kyiv or seizing the capital of kyiv. we shutter to think of how many civilians would be caught in the cross fire of that. so what does that even look like? i think that is something that putin clearly is not going