Ukrainian civilians prepare to fight Russia 2:42
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CNN) --
Far from believing claims that the fighting in Ukraine is abating, the United States is stepping up its relentless information warfare campaign against Russia, keeping the world on high alert for a possible invasion of Ukraine.
The Biden administration — seeking to keep up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and keep his allies united — categorically rejects what it sees as disinformation from Moscow and warns that the threat is increasingly urgent.
A senior official said late on Wednesday that Russia had massed another 7,000 troops on the Ukrainian border in recent days, despite Kremlin claims that some forces had returned to their bases, in comments seen as an opening for diplomacy.
"All the indications we have now are that they only intend to publicly offer dialogue and make claims about de-escalation, while privately they are mobilizing for war," the official said, reiterating that Russia could fake an incident as a pretext to attack using what that President Joe Biden said Tuesday was about 150,000 troops.
Latest news on the crisis between Ukraine and Russia: announcements of de-escalation and mistrust
The new US claims represented the latest gambit in a highly unusual public relations campaign using declassified intelligence, aimed at removing the element of surprise from Putin and depriving Moscow of the usual advantage it secures through its dominance of disinformation tactics.
Inside Washington, few doubt the administration's claims that Putin is ready to invade at any moment.
But the intensity of US warnings over several weeks may soon raise the question of how long Biden can maintain the alert status, and whether the continued absence of an invasion despite increasingly dire warnings could open gaps between NATO allies, and between the governments of the United States and Ukraine.
Such tensions would directly play into Putin's long-term strategic goals.
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Both the United States and Russia, the world's two largest nuclear powers, say they are willing to negotiate.
But they remain far apart on Putin's demands to break existing security arrangements in Eastern Europe by pulling NATO troops from former Warsaw Pact nations.
The US game is not without risk, as it could push Putin over the edge, especially if, as some US officials suspect, he is increasingly prone to a bunker mentality and little outside advice and perspective from officials willing to challenge their views.
Waiting for Putin's next move
By definition, in a fight waged with dueling propaganda and information, it's hard to know what's really going on.
At this point it is impossible to judge whether the US is actually making preparations for an invasion or taking Putin's bait by exposing the troop movements he is ordering knowing they will be singled out by Washington, thereby increasing the feeling of insecurity in Europe and anxiety about what he might do next.
The standoff over Ukraine has become the most serious geopolitical confrontation in Europe since the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
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The United States will not send troops to Ukraine to directly fight the Russians.
But Biden has rushed forces to bolster NATO allies in Eastern Europe.
Putin is holding Ukraine, a sovereign and democratic nation, hostage to demand that the Western alliance withdraw from ex-Soviet satellite states such as Poland, Romania and Hungary.
And if Russia moves into Ukraine, there could be painful consequences for Americans at home, with rising gas and energy prices adding to existing inflationary misery.
The new US warning about Russia's secret maneuvers came amid accelerating efforts to maintain Western pressure on Moscow.
The White House announced that Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference this weekend.
The forum, which will also be attended by leading European officials and US lawmakers, is becoming a rallying point for the United States and its allies as the NATO alliance faces its most serious test since the fall of the Soviet Union. .
"We are at a very defining moment," the senior US official said, preempting the vice president's highest-level foreign policy mission to date.
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This week there has been some hope that the crisis might ease after Russia announced that some of its troops were moving away from the border.
However, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News on Wednesday that there had been no "significant withdrawal" and that Putin could "pull the trigger" at any time.
"I could do it today; I could do it tomorrow. Or I could do it next week," Blinken said.
Putin plays long
But in a new sign of contention between the US and Ukraine itself, an intelligence report from Kyiv shown to CNN insisted that the current Russian troop buildup is not enough for a "successful large-scale armed aggression against Ukraine." .
The different assessments contributed to the uncertainty and confusion characteristic of Putin's Machiavellian methods.
The Russian leader has observers divided between those who believe he is merely seeking to destabilize Ukraine's government, assert Russian power and storm the Western alliance, and those who are convinced an invasion is imminent that could usher in a dangerous new era in Russia. Europe.
Congressman Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that the Russian leader's intentions were almost certainly dire.
"I think they're running a disinformation campaign," McCaul said.
The grim truth is that while there will be questions about troop readiness, Putin can keep up the pressure campaign almost indefinitely.
In doing so, he could show Ukraine that he will never allow it to join the European Union or NATO, dig divisions among Western allies and make it clear that Russia must never again be ignored when it comes to security arrangements on the European continent. .
The crisis also served another purpose: while a stream of leaders and diplomats traveled to Moscow and Putin has spoken frequently with Biden, it restored Russia's image as a great power, after years in which the United States downplayed its threat and built its foreign policy on around the confrontation with China.
Even if he does not invade, Putin has the ability to turn up the heat whenever he feels that Russia is not being respected.
And days and weeks of prolonged fighting could discredit US claims that an invasion is imminent, weaken Western resolve and restore Russia's element of surprise.
In a long-term confrontation, Russia would have the upper hand because it cares far more about the fate of Ukraine, a former Soviet federal state, than the West does.
Although this confrontation lacks the breadth and intensity of the Cold War, when Europe was divided by an Iron Curtain into free nations protected by the US and communist states dominated by Moscow, it seems that a geopolitical change is taking place with the possibility of another ossified confrontation.
ANALYSIS |
Is Putin creating a pretext for war?
Putin has been in power for more than 20 years, has outlived multiple US presidents and is not playing by the four-year clock between elections that dominates American politics.
He, too, is willing to subject the Russian people — who have endured a grueling history — to more pain than a US president worried about re-election would tolerate for his own.
It's one reason some experts believe he may be willing to risk the withering sanctions that an invasion would bring.
the new normal
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who will also meet Harris in Munich, fueled the perception that a more contentious era is dawning in Eastern Europe, reflecting old Cold War divisions.
"I am sorry to say that this is the new normal in Europe," Stoltenberg said in Brussels.
"We don't know what will happen in Ukraine. But the situation has already shown that we are facing a European security crisis. Moscow has made it clear that it is ready to challenge the fundamental principles that have underpinned our security for decades and to do so by using the strength," he added.
The fact that the West is meeting in Munich to prepare for new clashes is ironic, as it was at the conference 15 years ago that Putin launched a savage attack on America and the post-Cold War order that, in hindsight, was a playbook for his tactics that culminated in the Ukraine crisis.
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The Russian leader lamented a "unipolar" era of American power at a time when the United States was waging wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also lambasted NATO's expansion to include ex-Soviet satellite nations, the underlying cause of his belief that the West threatens Russia and must prevent Ukraine from falling further under its influence.
"We have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?" he said, hinting at a campaign of "many years and decades, as well as several generations of politicians" that would rebalance the scales.
For those who remember his Munich tirade, nothing Putin did, his harsh and hostile turn against the United States, his incursion into Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, the interventions in the American elections and the current bullying towards Ukraine come as a surprise. .
Washington may think it won the Cold War 30 years ago.
But the last few weeks show that the Russian leader continues to wage something very similar, because it is a way of demanding that his country's power, status and objectives be respected.
United StatesJoe BidenRussiaVladimir Putin