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US President Joe Biden held a telephone conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday, a day after he told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the West would respond decisively to any possible attack.
The White House said in a statement that “President Biden reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“President Biden has made it clear that the United States, together with its allies and partners, will respond swiftly and decisively to any further Russian aggression against Ukraine,” the White House said in a statement.
The two leaders agreed that it was important to continue diplomatic efforts in response to the gathering of Russian military troops on the borders of Ukraine.
The United States said Sunday that Russia could attack Ukraine in the coming days and could create a false pretext for possible intervention.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN that Washington could not predict with absolute certainty the day of the intervention but that a Russian attack on Ukraine could occur day by day.
“We will defend every inch of NATO territory and we believe that Russia fully understands this message,” Sullivan said in another interview with CBS television’s “Face the Nation.”
Ukraine is not part of the NATO alliance.
Senior US officials said they could not confirm reports that US intelligence had information that Russia planned to attack on Wednesday, but said they would try to prevent any possible “surprise attack” by making public everything they knew about it. Russia’s plans.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Sunday he was “unable to confirm reports” that Russia would attack on Wednesday.
But in an interview with Fox News Sunday, Mr. Kirby said a Russian military intervention could happen every day.
“These assessments come from a number of sources and not only within the discovery but also from what we see on the ground. “Over 100,000 troops are now still gathered on the border with Ukraine,” he said.
Meanwhile Ukrainian President Zelenskiy said he had so far seen no convincing evidence of a possible Russian attack within days.
Both Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Kirby warned again that the Americans should leave Ukraine.
Washington, the United States’s European allies and others have reduced or evacuated embassy staff and urged their citizens to leave immediately or avoid traveling to Ukraine.
US personnel at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) began leaving the pro-Russian separatist city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, a witness told Reuters.
Yet Washington says the diplomatic route remains open.
“The simplest way for Moscow to show that it will follow that path is to de-escalate the situation, not escalate it,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Sunday.
Moscow denies having a plan for attack but high-level talks between senior Russian and Western officials in recent days have yielded no results./VOA
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