Vladimir Putin ‘two weeks from all-out invasion’

Western intelligence warns Moscow could use military exercises in Belarus as cover to advance on Kiev, with amphibious ships seizing Odessa.

Russian tank units are on military exercises with Belarus. Picture: Getty Images.

Russia is two weeks away from having a force big enough to take all of Ukraine and could use an exercise in Belarus as cover for troops to advance on Kiev, western allies fear.

A senior intelligence official said six amphibious warfare ships could seize the port of Odessa as part of a multi-axis invasion that could split Ukraine’s military. He said Moscow had moved forces from an eastern military district for the first time since 1941 in what he described as “unprecedented in the modern era”.

On the prospect of a complete takeover, the official said: “They have the forces available, they have the wherewithal to move them and they seem to have the will to do so.”

Some Ukrainian military sources have taken a more optimistic tone, believing the chance of conflict is “50-50”.

Analysts have cited the number of forces massed on the border, which they say is insufficient. Russia has more than 100,000 troops there, totalling about 100 battalion tactical groups, each about 600 to 1,000-strong. The official, who did not want to be identified, said Russia would need more than 100 tactical groups to launch a full-scale invasion, although it could attempt one with fewer.

Russia would be able to increase forces to about the required number in “two to three weeks”, he said. “Some estimates are another 60 will come, if not greater than that. It’s certainly not just a negotiating tactic or an idle threat when you deploy this many troops with this capability.”

There were more logistics and medical troops, as well as “command and control” forces heading to the region.

The official said Russia could move in forces from Belarus, while an exercise next month could be used as cover to send in the troops to take the capital. “They will be likely very close not just to the border but also to one of these approaches to the capital,” he said. Other forces could invade from the north as tens of thousands move in from the eastern region. Landing craft could seize Odessa and move up from Crimea to take a crucial canal. The official said an alternative could be for Russia to force regime change in Kiev without an invasion. He said if it wanted to launch a smaller incursion “they could do so today with little or no warning with the capability they already have deployed”.

Some observers have said President Putin has backed himself into a corner by making unrealistic demands of Nato and cannot see how the situation can be pulled back from the brink of war.

“The positions are so maximalist you’ve effectively curtailed many of your exit options. I fear he may have forced himself in a direction. It may have been that’s what he wished all along anyway and this has all been window dressing,” the official added.

Washington has attempted to raise the pressure on Moscow, warning that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which links Russian supplies to western Europe, would not go ahead if there was an invasion. A State Department spokesman said the US would work with Germany to ensure the project was stopped. “If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward,” he said.

Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, said that Nord Stream 2 could face sanctions as part of the “whole bandwidth of responses that are available to us”.

Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said an attack could threaten food supplies in countries dependent on grain. Libya, Serbia and Yemen all import vast amounts of grain from Ukraine.

Wallace, who will visit Moscow next month, said: “We are all focused on gas, but think about the cost of food being stopped. What does that mean to those countries when suddenly the food stops?” He said the West had seen the movement of “strategic weapons” by Moscow. Although he would not go into the details, he added they were “things that would not normally be in that part of the world”.

The Times