The discussions got here because the State Division ordered all members of the family of U.S. embassy personnel in Kyiv to go away Ukraine, citing the specter of Russian army motion, and approved some embassy staff to depart as properly, in keeping with senior State Division officers who briefed reporters on Sunday. The officers, who additionally spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to remark, declined to say what number of embassy personnel and members of the family had been within the nation. Scaling down workers at American embassies is a typical precaution when conflicts or different crises come up that would put American diplomats in hurt’s manner.
In his information convention final week, Mr. Biden stated he had cautioned Mr. Putin {that a} Russian invasion of Ukraine would immediate Washington to ship extra troops to the area.
“We’re going to truly enhance troop presence in Poland, in Romania, et cetera, if in reality he strikes,” Mr. Biden stated. “They’re a part of NATO.”
Throughout a telephone name this month, Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III warned his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoygu, {that a} Russian incursion into Ukraine would most probably end result within the actual troop buildup that Mr. Biden is now contemplating.
On the time of the telephone name — Jan. 6 — the Biden administration was nonetheless attempting to be extra restrained in its stance on Ukraine. However after unsuccessful talks between Mr. Blinken and the Russian international minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Friday, the administration is eying a extra muscular posture, together with not solely diplomatic choices like sanctions, however army choices like growing army help to Ukrainian forces and deploying American troops to the area.
“That is clearly in response to the sudden stationing of Russian forces in Belarus, on the border, primarily, with NATO,” stated Evelyn Farkas, the highest Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine through the Obama administration. “There isn’t a manner that NATO couldn’t reply to such a sudden army transfer on this political context. The Kremlin wants to know that they’re solely escalating the scenario with all of those deployments and growing the hazard to all events, together with themselves.”
A former prime Pentagon official for Europe and NATO coverage, Jim Townsend, stated the administration’s proposal didn’t go far sufficient.
