Biden Admin Claims Russia May Use Pretext to Attack Ukraine, Kremlin Denies

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, on Jan. 13, 2022. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Officials with the Biden administration on Sunday again claimed that Russia may attack Ukraine soon and the Kremlin might create a surprise pretext for an invasion, although Moscow denied the allegations.

“We cannot perfectly predict the day, but we have now been saying for some time that we are in the window, and an invasion could begin—a major military action could begin—by Russia in Ukraine any day now,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN on Sunday, repeating a claim that he made during a news conference on Friday.

Sullivan said Moscow may consider attacking its Eastern European neighbor before Feb. 20, or before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. He did not provide a specific piece of evidence to corroborate his claim.

To make his argument for Moscow’s plans of an imminent invasion, Sullivan said that Russia has “built up” and “maneuvered” its forces in a particular way around Ukraine. “We are prepared to continue to work on diplomacy, but we are also prepared to respond in a united and decisive way with our allies and partners should Russia proceed,” he said.

Sullivan said Washington would continue sharing intelligence with the world to deny Moscow the ability to stage a surprise “false flag” operation that could be a pretext for an attack.

In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby was asked about a Politico report claiming Russia would begin its invasion on Feb. 16.

“I’m not in a position to confirm those reports,” Kirby said. “We want to be careful about publicly talking about intelligence and sources and methods and that kind of thing. What I can tell you [is] ... we believe a major military action could occur any day now,” he continued.

Ukrainian Military Forces servicemen attend a military drill with Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW) Swedish-British anti-aircraft missile launchers at the firing ground of the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security, near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Jan. 28, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)

In comments to Russian media outlet Tass, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such allegations are “empty and unfounded” and serve as a ploy to escalate tensions. However, Peskov said Russia isn’t ruling out what he described as provocations aimed at justifying those allegations.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Saturday accused some U.S. government officials of colluding with mainstream U.S. media to start a hysteria. Zakharova said the United States could be attempting to provoke Russia.

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with President Joe Biden by phone. The Kremlin said Putin told Biden that Washington had failed to take Russia’s main concerns into account and it had received no “substantial answer” on key elements of its security demands.

That same day, Washington ordered most of its staff out of the embassy in Kyiv as American citizens were urged to immediately leave Ukraine. Other European countries have also scaled back their staffing in Ukraine, while also telling their citizens to flee.

“The diplomatic path remains open. The way for Moscow to show that it wants to pursue that path is simple. It should de-escalate, rather than escalate,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said after he held talks on Saturday with Asian allies.

Starting in 2014, Russian forces captured Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and also have been funding separatist rebels in the Donbas region. In recent months, Russia has positioned upwards of 100,000 troops along its borders with Ukraine and carried out military drills in nearby Belarus, an ally of Moscow.

Reuters contributed to this report.