White House officials say Russia could invade ‘at any point’

As Russia appears poised to invade Ukraine at any moment, the US is desperately trying to de-escalate the “extremely dangerous” situation.

As tensions ramp up between Russia and Ukraine, the US is frantically trying to stop an invasion and possible war. Picture: Getty Images

US officials believe Russia could be on the brink of war, with the country in the position to carry out an attack on Ukraine “at any point”.

The comments come ahead of a planned meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday.

At her daily White House briefing on Tuesday, press secretary Jen Psaki detailed the concern the US has about a Russian invasion.

White House press secretary Jennifer Psaki said the situation was ‘extremely dangerous’. Picture: AFP

“Our view is this is an extremely dangerous situation. We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine,” she said, adding later that her language was “more stark than we have been”.

Russia has amassed 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border and recently moved forces to neighbouring Belarus for joint military drills.

Western counties have been scrambling to devise plans to prevent any conflict in the region.

Ukrainian soldiers walk past destroyed buildings on December 8, 2021 in Marinka, Ukraine. Picture: Getty Images

There have been high-level diplomatic talks between the US and Russian officials in the lead-up to Friday’s meeting, where Mr Blinken will attempt to convince the Russian government to de-escalate the situation.

Last month, US President Joe Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin on a video call that Russia would face sanctions if it invaded Ukraine and that the US would move to bolster NATO’s eastern flank and increase military aid to Ukraine in the event of an invasion.

However, while it seems cutting Russia off from the SWIFT global banking system was one possible sanction that wasn’t going to be attempted, when asked to confirm that was off the table, Ms Psaki said: “No option is off the table, in our view.”

Last week, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US intelligence community had not assessed whether Mr Putin has made his mind up on invading Ukraine but characterised the threat as high.

US officials also said they have evidence of Russia laying the groundwork for a false flag operation that could serve as a pretext for invading Ukraine.