US officials warn of grim death toll if Russia invades Ukraine

As tensions in eastern Europe mount, as many as 50,000 civilians could be killed if Russia invades Ukraine, senior US officials have warned.

As many as 50,000 civilians could be killed if Russia were to fully invade Ukraine, senior Biden administration officials have warned. Picture: Yuri Kochetkov/AFP

As many as 50,000 civilians could be killed if Russia was to fully invade Ukraine, senior Biden administration officials have warned, the latest in a series of grim predictions from the West as tensions between the two European nations mount.

During six hours of closed meetings on Thursday local time, US House and Senate officials painted an ominous picture of the options Russian President Vladimir Putin has created for himself in recent weeks.

According to The New York Times, officials from US President Joe Biden’s administration told politicians that Mr Putin could take one of five options “depending on the scope of his ambitions and his calculations about whether he would rather try to take the whole country quickly, no matter the human and economic cost to Russia, or attack it in pieces, in hopes of dividing Europe and NATO allies”.

The options reportedly include a coup that would depose Ukraine’s democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelensky; a limited incursion into eastern Ukraine; an incursion into the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine accompanied by a Russian declaration of Donbas as an independent republic; or a Donbas incursion followed by an invasion and annexation of the entirety of eastern Ukraine.

The worst-case prediction, however, is that Mr Putin is preparing to take the entire country, which would most likely produce the greatest casualties and prompt the harshest sanctions from the rest of Europe and the US.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Picture: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

A military instructor teaches volunteers as they take part in a training session at an abandoned factory in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Picture: Sergei Supinsky/AFP

While US intelligence analysts have not assessed that the Russian leader has made a final decision to invade – and Kremlin officials have repeatedly rubbished claims of the plan – they said he has assembled everything he would need to undertake what would constitute the largest military operation on land in Europe since 1945.

If Mr Putin were to go ahead with a full invasion, the potential human cost would be enormous – leading to the potential deaths of between 5000 and 25,000 members of Ukrainian military, 3000 to 10,000 members of the Russian military, and a stunning 25,000 to 50,000 civilians.

Warsaw, Riga, Vilnius, Lviv, Kyiv, and much of western Ukraine are within range of the Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile systems in Osipovichi. Of course, much of the Baltics, Poland, and other countries are already within range of the 152nd Missile Brigade in Kaliningrad. https://t.co/nA7RgdN1WZ

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) February 2, 2022

It would also lead to an enormous refugee crisis, the officials warned, sending between one and five million people fleeing across Europe, predominantly into neighbouring Poland.

Should Mr Putin choose the most aggressive option – to invade – American officials believe he is not likely to move until the second half of this month, having already surrounded Ukraine on three sides.

As of last week, he has amassed 70 per cent of the forces he would need to pull off a large-scale invasion to take the entire country, the officials said.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told politicians the Russian President is putting in the “military capability to do any and all, building himself a set of options”.

Republican Senator for Florida Marco Rubio told reporters after hearing from administration officials that a Russian invasion was a “near certainty”.

“If we now live in an era where someone can move into a country and just take it over and claim it as their own, I don’t think it’s going to stop at Ukraine,” he added, alluding to fears Mr Putin may be trying to redraw the map of Europe to return to the days of the Soviet Union.

Madness and scaremongering continues..what if we would say that US could seize London in a week and cause 300K civilian deaths? All this based on our intelligence sources that we won’t disclose.Would it feel right for Americans and Britts?It’s as wrong for Russians and Ukrainians https://t.co/Zai1tpowO7

— Dmitry Polyanskiy (@Dpol_un) February 6, 2022

After the briefings became public, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy rubbished the assessment.

“Madness and scaremongering continues,” he wrote on Twitter.

“What if we would say that US could seize London in a week and cause 300,000 civilian deaths? All this based on our intelligence sources that we won’t disclose. Would it feel right for Americans and Britts [sic]? It’s as wrong for Russians and Ukrainians.”

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby. Picture: Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP

The denial comes after US Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told a briefing that intelligence suggested Russia “is planning to stage a fake attack by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces against Russian sovereign territory or against Russian-speaking people”.

“As part of this fake attack, we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations, as well as military equipment at the hands of Ukraine or the West, even to the point where some of this equipment would be made to look like it was Western supplied … to Ukraine equipment,” he said.

He said the video would be used to “fabricate a pretext for an invasion” of Ukraine.

An unnamed senior insider told CNN the US understands Russia has already lined up actors and that the video could feature images of Bayraktar drones, which Turkey had given to Ukraine, “as a means to implicate NATO in the attack”.

The official said the clip, which could depict a violent explosion with multiple casualties, would “be released to underscore a threat to Russia’s security and to underpin military operations” and “could provide Putin the spark he needs to initiate and justify military operations against Ukraine”.

But Russia has denied the allegation, insisting it was not planning a so-called “false flag” operation.