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US intelligence: Russia plans to attack Ukraine earlier this year

The Washington Post reports that the plan will include 175,000 troops, armored forces and artillery, and is likely to be implemented in early 2022. Biden, who will hold a video call with Putin in the coming days, rejects Moscow's demands to prevent Kiev from joining NATO: That he is planning "

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• Ukraine

Guy Elster

Saturday, 04 December 2021, 09:21

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US determination is put to the test. Biden in a conversation with reporters at the White House, yesterday (Photo: Reuters)

US intelligence believes that Russia is planning a large-scale offensive against Ukraine as early as 2022, the Washington Post reported Saturday night, citing officials and an intelligence document it has received.

According to intelligence estimates in the United States, based on satellite images from the region, the attack will include 175,000 troops, which Russia has been concentrating on Ukraine's borders in recent weeks.

Russia is demanding guarantees from the United States that Ukraine will not join NATO, and that the alliance will refrain from military activity in and around its territory.

"Russian plans call for a military offensive against Ukraine as early as 2022, with a volume twice as large as we saw last spring when Russia conducted a surprise exercise near Ukraine's borders," said a government official, who spoke anonymously to discuss the sensitive issue.

In addition to the infantry, Russia has deployed armored forces, artillery and other military equipment near Ukraine.

While it is estimated that Ukraine, Russia has already brought 94,000 troops to the border area, the United States estimates from satellite images that it is 70,000 troops, but it estimates that their scope will expand to 175,000.

In addition, the widespread movement of military units to and from the border is intended to "blur the intentions and create uncertainty."

Exercise of the Russian Army Crimea, April

In the video: Russia's military exercise in the Crimea (from Twitter)

In perhaps the last attempt to prevent an escalation, US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to hold a video call in the coming days, following their Foreign Ministers' meeting in Stockholm on Thursday.

Biden has said Washington is formulating measures that will take a heavy toll on Russia if it invades Ukraine, despite Putin's denials he intends to do so.

"What I am doing is formulating what I believe will be the most comprehensive and significant series of initiatives that will make it very difficult for Putin to continue to do what people are afraid of," Biden said yesterday, dismissing Russia's "red lines" with respect to Ukraine.

Concerns about the moves of the Russian military also arose due to the rapid recruitment of reserve forces and a dramatic escalation in the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in Russia. Sources in Russia claim that the mobilization of the reserve is necessary as part of the modernization of the Russian army, but in the United States there are fears that Moscow will be able to quickly expand its array of forces near Ukraine's borders.

Moscow warns of a return to the "nightmare scenario" of a European conflict. Putin in the Kremlin, Thursday (Photo: AP)

Intelligence could point to why senior Biden administration officials have briefed the media in recent weeks on fears of a Russian invasion. "We do not know if President Putin made the decision to invade, we do know that he is establishing the ability to do so in a short time if he decides to invade," Blinken said in a conversation with reporters in Europe the day before meeting with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov. "We have to be prepared for all the scenarios."

Lavrov, for his part, warned before the meeting with Blinkn that US military aid and NATO to Ukraine "brings the horror scenario of military confrontation" on the continent.

According to the intelligence document published in the Washington Post, you may leave Rossa army training bases military equipment to be able to attack quickly Ukraine in the future, as happened last April, in Washington and Kiev believe that any attack by the Russian army will be much more extensive than in 2014, when it annexed the Crimean peninsula and supported separatists in the east of the country.

The purpose of such an attack would not necessarily be to occupy new territories, but to bring Kiev to surrender so that the Kremlin would receive the guarantees it demanded, as happened during Russia's war with Georgia in 2008.

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