Putin's order puts NATO and the EU on high alert

NATO has been on permanent alert since this Friday to the risk that Russia will attack Ukraine in a matter of days.

The Western military alliance lends credibility to the information obtained by US intelligence services, which points to a Russian invasion around February 16.

The Western allies also fear that the conflict in Ukraine will lead to a hybrid war between Moscow and Europe, with a dangerous combination of migratory pressure on Polish borders and cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure, including energy supply, which could doom some European countries to blackouts or lack of fuel for heating.

The serious situation in eastern Europe has led NATO's Atlantic Council, where the ambassadors of the 30 allies sit, to declare itself in "permanent session", according to Alliance sources in Brussels.

The ambassadors received on Friday morning the serious information from the US espionage services about the start of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which would even have, according to these sources, a specific date: February 16.

Shortly after, US President Joe Biden called a video conference with the main leaders of the Atlantic bloc and the EU and gave them the same impression that war may be imminent.

NATO's first emergency session called by the organization's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, lasted until almost 11 p.m. on Friday.

And another meeting of the Atlantic Council has already been called immediately for Monday at 10 in the morning.

During the weekend, according to allied sources, the representatives in Brussels of the 30 NATO countries have been asked to remain constantly ready to meet immediately if there is any unexpected alert.

The feeling of alarm in Europe also spreads in the civil field, given the unforeseeable consequences of an armed conflict in a country the size of Ukraine (39 million inhabitants), which is also a key player in the supply of Russian gas to western markets.

Brussels and Washington have intensified contacts in recent hours to coordinate a response to avoid an energy crisis in Europe by chance or caused by the Kremlin.

The Cabinet of Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, has assumed in recent hours the coordination with the US both for the imposition of sanctions against Russia in the event of an attack on Ukraine and to mitigate the possible consequences for Europe, especially in the energy field.

Von der Leyen informed his Western allies on Friday, during the videoconference organized by US President Joe Biden, of the efforts carried out to increase the supply of liquefied natural gas to Europe, in anticipation of a possible gas cut. Russian.

Brussels and Washington also fear that there may be blackouts or caused supply cuts.

The transatlantic energy council, the forum created by the Commission and the US Administration to coordinate on energy matters, has warned of the "growing risk of cyberattacks against energy infrastructures".

The potentially most vulnerable countries would be the Baltics, within the EU, and those of the Balkans outside the community perimeter.

The EU also fears the migratory repercussions of an armed clash within Ukraine.

In 2014, when Moscow seized Crimea and encouraged separatism in the Donbas region, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to Poland, where an estimated 1.4 million Ukrainians live.

That relatively minor conflict also left a million and a half internally displaced persons who are still unable to return to their places of origin.

A new aggression by Moscow against Ukraine could cause between 1.7 million and 8 million people to leave the country, according to a recent study, depending on the territory occupied by Russian troops.

The vast majority would initially go to Poland and then, at least a part, to Germany and other EU countries.

Diplomatic efforts to prevent a bloody outcome continue.

And this Saturday, the American president, Joe Biden, has telephoned the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to urge him again to withdraw his troops.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited Moscow last Monday without making any known progress, has also telephoned Putin to seek a negotiated solution to the crisis.

Just in case, the US and various allies have begun to evacuate part of their diplomatic missions from Kiev.

Others, including Spain, have asked their nationals to leave Ukraine as soon as possible by their own means.

"We continue to think that an incursion [by Russian troops] into Ukraine may be imminent," warned British Foreign Minister Liz Truss, reports

.

During a meeting in London with EL PAÍS and a small group of media, Truss pointed out that during his recent visit to Moscow he warned the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, that "the cost [of the aggression] would be very serious because there will be sanctions, but above all because the Ukrainians will respond, and it would lead to a broad conflict that would threaten the very stability of Europe”.

Western allies have ruled out entering the Ukrainian battlefield to confront Russian troops.

But the risk of Russian aggression destabilizing the entire area has led the Alliance to significantly strengthen its presence in the Eastern countries, particularly in Poland and Romania, bordering Ukraine, and in Bulgaria, a Black Sea coastal country that could be part of the war scene.

The US has moved 3,000 troops to NATO's eastern border and on Friday announced the dispatch of another 3,000.

Germany and Italy have sent warplanes to Romania, and Spain to Bulgaria.

And air friction between NATO and Russia is constant in the airspace of the Baltic countries.

In this month of February, according to NATO, American, British and Norwegian planes have already intercepted several Russian planes (SU-35 and Mig-31) and a refueling plane supplying fuel in mid-flight to Russian bombers.

Biden's warnings about the imminence of a Russian attack were initially received with some skepticism in the Old Continent.

The false alarm in the spring of 2021, when Putin also amassed troops along the Ukrainian border, raised the hope that this time it was simply a ruse by Moscow to force a negotiation with Washington and NATO.

But European sources now acknowledge that the huge mobilization of Russian troops (more than 130,000 troops in Russia and Belarus) and the financial and logistical cost of such an operation show that Putin is willing to launch an offensive that could occupy at least half of Ukraine which is located east of the Dnieper River.

The US believes that the day chosen for the attack could be February 16.

The date fits with the preparations undertaken by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who has managed to accumulate a formidable deployment of forces along the northern and eastern borders of the Ukrainian territory.

Allied sources believe that Moscow cannot maintain an operation of this magnitude for long without launching a withering blow or opening itself to a negotiated withdrawal that is increasingly considered more unlikely.

These sources give credibility to the information provided by the United States. And they believe that after the fiasco of 2003, when Washington dragged its allies into a war in Iraq based on false information, the United States cannot once again risk the reputation and credibility of its espionage services, which was severely damaged by the fiasco of the alleged weapons of mass destruction of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

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