- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said there's no visible sign of de-escalation.
- Defense ministers from 30 NATO members are gathered in Brussels for talks.
- The Kremlin on Wednesday said it was sending even more troops back to their bases.
WASHINGTON – U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Russia’s claims that it is withdrawing troops along its border with Ukraine are false and that Moscow has actually increased its military presence along the border by as many as 7,000 troops in the past several days.
A senior administration official speaking on the condition of anonymity said Wednesday that Russia appears to be mobilizing for war, while claiming publicly that it is open to diplomacy to de-escalate tensions with the West.
The official said there are also ongoing indications that Russia is creating a “false flag” operation as a pretext to justify an invasion of Ukraine. The false claims could include reports of unmarked graves for people allegedly killed by Ukrainian armed forces, as well as assertions that the U.S. and Ukraine are developing biological or chemical weapons and that the West is sending in guerillas to kill local residents.
“Each of these allegations is categorically false,” the official said.
The new disclosures come after public remarks earlier on Wednesday by U.S. and NATO officials, who also said Russia appears to be continuing with its military buildup on Ukraine's borders despite claiming it is moving troops away from the area.
“Unfortunately, there's a difference between what Russia says and what it does and what we're seeing is no meaningful pullback,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a Wednesday ABC News interview. “On the contrary, we continue to see forces, especially forces that would be in the vanguard of any renewed aggression,” he said.
In Brussels, where defense ministers are meeting, NATO Secretary General JensStoltenberg said there were no visible signs Wednesday of "de-escalation on the ground," a day after Moscow asserted it was moving some troops and weapons back to bases after the completion of military drills. Stoltenberg added that Russia has "always moved forces back and forth" and that its release of video footage over the last 24 hours purporting to show its forces retreating "does not confirm a real withdrawal."
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Stoltenberg said NATO allies "remain ready to engage with Russia," which wants Ukraine to drop its ambition to one day join the military alliance that promotes democratic values and was formed in the wake of World War II.
Defense ministers from the 30 NATO member countries are meeting for the next two days amid fears that Russia could be planning to invade its neighbor Ukraine, a scenario that Moscow has dismissed as "western hysteria" and not matched by evidence even though it has sent approximately 150,000 troops to encircle Ukraine's territory.
The Kremlin on Wednesday said it was in the process of sending back even more troops to permanent bases. It didn't specify how many. Russia's defense ministry released a video that it said showed armored vehicles moving across a bridge away from Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Harris to meet with NATO allies in Munich
Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a series of meetings with U.S. allies over the next few days when she travels to Germany for a gathering of national security officials from all over the world.
Harris will lead the U.S. delegation at the Munich Security Conference, which opens Friday and runs through Sunday. The vice president is scheduled to address the group and will emphasize U.S. solidarity with NATO and its commitment to Ukraine amid the threat of a Russian invasion.
Harris is expected to meet with several world leaders, including Stoltenberg, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Blinken also plans to attend the conference. Blinken is expected to reaffirm U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and plans to update allies on diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the crisis, as well as punitive measures the U.S. is prepared to take should Russia invade its neighbor.
Poll: Americans expect Russia-Ukraine tensions to lead to war
An estimated14,000 people on both sides have died in fighting between Ukraine and Russia-backed rebels since 2014, when Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea region on the Black Sea and threw its weight behind separatists in two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine. People on the ground stand to lose the most if the conflict escalates. Washington and its allies have ruled out sending NATO troops to Ukraine.
But Americans are also bracing for the worst as the world waits to see whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will invade Ukraine.
Some 55% of Americans believe tensions between Russia and Ukraine will lead to war, according to a national poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University. Thirty percent said they do not.
If war does break out, 57% said the U.S. should not send troops into Ukraine, while 32% supported such a move. However, 54% of Americans support Biden’s decision to deploy thousands of troops to eastern Europe to support U.S. allies in NAT0, while 36% oppose that move.
Those polled said by a nearly 2-to-1 margin (62% to 34%) that Russia poses a military threat to the United States.
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Biden, Scholz huddle
In Washington, President Joe Biden held a secure call Wednesday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the White House said.
The two leaders discussed their respective conversations with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reaffirmed their commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and underscored the importance of diplomacy and deterrence measures if Russia invades Ukraine, the White House said in a summary of the call.
On Tuesday, Scholz met in Moscow with Putin. When Scholz visited the White House earlier this month, he and Biden pledged a united response.
Psaki: 'We remain in the window' for invasion
White House press secretary Jen Psaki emphasized Wednesday that an invasion of Ukraine is still likely, even though Russia hasn’t attacked on the day U.S. officials had appeared to indicate it could happen.
“What we had conveyed last week…is that we are in the window,” Psaki said during the White House’s daily briefing. “We remain in the window.”
She had been asked about the fact that it appeared Feb. 16 would close without an attack. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday they’d been told Feb. 16 “will be the day of attack.” Psaki said she couldn’t get into intelligence gathered or the conversations the U.S. has had with its allies. Instead, she said the threat of aggression remains.
What has changed on the ground?
In remarks at the White House on Tuesday, Biden noted that U.S. officials and military experts had not verified Russia's troop withdrawal claims.
"Indeed, our analysts indicate that they remain very much in a threatening position," he said. Ukrainian officials said they were awaiting concrete evidence of Russian withdrawals.
"(Nothing) has changed on the ground in any meaningful way. Putin could have invaded yesterday, he can still do so tomorrow," Russian analyst Mark Galeotti noted on Twitter.
Skepticism, calls for unity in Ukraine
In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared Wednesday a "day of national unity" and encouraged Ukrainians to sing the national anthem and wave flags.
Across the country, Ukrainians of all ages displayed flags in the streets and from apartment windows.
Hundreds unfolded a 650-foot flag at Kyiv’s Olimpiyskiy Stadium, while another was draped in the center of a shopping mall in the capital.
In the government-controlled part of Ukraine's eastern region of Luhansk, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian troops for the last eight years, residents stretched another huge flag across a street.
“This event, this number of people united around Ukrainian flag will show that we stand for united Ukraine,” said resident Olena Tkachova.
According to his public remarks over the last several weeks, Zelenskyy's assessment of the invasion threat Ukraine faces has diverged from U.S. intelligence. Several U.S. officials appeared to indicate they believed Russia's attack would happen Feb. 16.
"These emotional swings and psychological pressure are very tiring. Today everyone breathed a sigh of relief that we weren’t attacked," Ukrainian journalist Kristina Berdynskykh wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. "Tomorrow there’ll be information they’re moving stuff closer to the border again and it will all start again. But people will get used to this too and will just stop reading the news."
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Late Tuesday, Ukraine appeared to blame Russia for a cyberattack that temporarily shuttered the websites of its army and some of its largest banks. The Kremlin denied it was behind the assault, and Russian lawmaker Valentina Matviyenko accused the U.S. of getting in the way of Russia's attempts to normalize it ties with Ukraine.
"The main problem in our relations with Ukraine, as I see it, is that Kyiv is not independent in its foreign and domestic policies. The Kyiv authorities are directed by Washington. And the adversarial relationship with Russia is the price that Ukraine has to pay for U.S. patronage," Matviyenko opined in an interview with Russian state media.
Contributing: Matthew Brown; Associated Press
