After hours of escalation in Eastern Ukraine, filled with shelling, evacuation orders, and an apparent explosion of a pipeline in Eastern Ukraine, President Joe Biden stepped up to the podium in the Roosevelt Room at the White House Friday afternoon, and made the starkest remarks yet that Russia is going to invade Ukraine.
"As of this moment, I'm convinced he's made the decision,” Biden said. “We have reason to believe that.”
His remarks are a huge departure from measured statements the Biden Administration and U.S. officials have been issuing for months, reassuring Americans and Ukrainians alike that the U.S. intelligence assessment is that Putin had not yet made a decision on whether to invade.
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When asked to clarify if that is indeed what he meant—that Putin is going to invade Ukraine, Biden answered resolutely: “Yes, I did. Yes.”
Biden’s assessment of the situation is based on “significant intelligence capability,” he said.
His remarks come after hours of an increasingly deteriorating situation on the ground in Ukraine: The Russia-backed separatist leader Denis Pushilin ordered evacuations from the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in Eastern Ukraine Friday, warning about an alleged imminent Ukrainian attack. Ukrainian officials have said the claims are false.
On Friday Russian media also began circulating news of a car bomb explosion in the DNR, in what officials have warned could be part of Russia’s plans to stage a false flag attack in order to claim a pretense to invade. Other allegations of Ukrainian aggression began flying in Russian media agencies Friday. The Deputy Commander of the DPR Operational Command, Eduard Basurin, claimed Friday Ukrainian military had started shelling in Donbass.
It’s all part of what appears to be Putin’s plan to claim Ukraine is the aggressor, not Russia, and that Russian forces must go in in order to protect and instill peace.
“Russia state media also continues to make phony allegations of a genocide taking place in the Donbass and push fabricated claims warning about Ukraine’s attack on Russia without any evidence,” Biden said Friday. “All of these are consistent with the playbook the Russians have used before to set up a false justification to act against Ukraine.”
The State Department reiterated that the information coming out of Russian media is highly dubious and misleading.
“We have been warning for weeks about false flag events that Russia would use as a pretext to justify an attack on Ukraine,” a State Department Spokesperson told The Daily Beast of the false claims circulating in Eastern Ukraine. “In the past few days, Russian media has been spreading false alarms and claims to maximize public outrage with baseless allegations. This is fundamental part of their playbook. We are certainly concerned that these incidents could be fake events they staged to justify an attack.”
The DNR’s Pushilin seems almost as resigned as Biden to conflict. When asked earlier Friday about whether war is coming he said, "Unfortunately, yes."
In the coming days, even though Putin may have decided to invade, there are some glimmers of hope. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are potentially slated for a meeting next week, according to Biden.
“Until he does [invade], diplomacy is always a possibility,” Biden said.
And although diplomacy still remains on the table, fallout from Biden’s remarks that Putin has decided to invade could have sweeping implications for civilians in Ukraine, for the financial sector, or the energy sector, and even for democracies around the world. Some fear that if Putin is able to go into Ukraine and attack its neighbor, other autocrats may take a hint to advance their agendas on the world stage, too.
“My concern is also that China is watching, you worry about China taking over Taiwan. You worry about Iran and a breakout to a nuclear weapon,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), who sits on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said on Fox News this week. “And if Putin is able to invade and take Ukraine easily I’m very concerned those other areas may go as well.”
