US warns its citizens: get out of Ukraine now

US issues starkest warning yet that Russia intends to invade before Winter Olympics ends, in a scenario previously thought unlikely.

U.S. President Joe Biden. The US government has urged its citizens to leave Ukraine within 48 hours.

The US urged Americans to leave Ukraine “within 48 hours” in its starkest warning yet that Russia intends to invade the former Soviet state and possibly before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing on February 20th, an outcome previously thought unlikely.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, one of President Biden’s most senior advisers, said “Russia could choose in very short order commence a major military action against Ukraine”, speaking at a press conference in Washington on Friday.

“It is the time to leave now … we are in the window when an invasion could begin at any time should [Russian President] Vladimir Putin decide to order it”

Mr Sullivan said the positions of Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders, up to 130,000 strong according to the US, suggested Russia, which began military training exercises with Ukraine’s neighbour and Russian allay Belarus earlier this week, was positioned to mount a major military action on Ukraine “any day now”.

Russia has repeatedly denied it intends to invade Ukraine.

“The president will not be putting the lives of our men and women in uniform at risk by sending them into a war zone to rescue people who could have left now but chose not to,” Mr Sullivan said.

The prospect of a prolonged US entanglement in Europe would undermine new US plans to beef-up its military presence in Asia to counter the threat of China, Richard Fontaine, executive director of the Centre for New American Security, told The Australian on Friday.

“If you look at what’s being committed here it’s increasing military presence in the Indo-Pacific, which is good, but an increasing military presence in Europe as it appears the US may do will come at a cost in Asia,” he said.

“The place we don’t want to be is what we’ve lamented for years is being tied down in the Middle East or now perhaps Europe and being unable to focus on Asia,” he told The Australian.

A few hours before Mr Sullivan spoke the US issued its new Indo-Pacific Strategy, promising to counter China’s “coercion and aggression” and deliver Australia nuclear powered submarines “at the earliest possible date” as part of the Biden administration’s new Indo-Pacific Strategy.

“From the economic coercion of Australia to … to the growing pressure on Taiwan and bullying of neighbours in the East and South China Seas, our allies and partners in the region bear much of the cost of the PRC’s harmful behaviour,” it said.

The highly anticipated document, a formalisation of the US “pivot to Asia” that began under the Obama administration, fleshed out a US promise to keep the Indo-Pacific region, which includes nations that border the Indian and Pacific Oceans, “connected, prosperous, secure and resilient”.

“American interests can only be advanced if we firmly anchor the United States in the Indo-Pacific and strengthen the region itself,” it added, for the first time flagging an increased US coast guard presence throughout the Pacific and Indian oceans.

“The strategy is a good one, it’s timely and has right approach to the region, but the biggest near term threat to the strategy lies outside the region in Russia and Ukraine,” Mr Fontaine said.

The release of the strategy roughly coincided with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Melbourne for talks with prime minister Scott Morrison and the foreign ministers of Japan, India as part of the latest round of Quad meetings, a forum that’s increasingly seen as a bulwark against Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

The Biden administration declared a “consequential new period of American foreign policy” that would “demand more of the US in the Indo-Pacific than has been asked of us since the Second World War”, citing China as a potential threat to the peace and prosperity of the region.

“The PRC is combining its economic, diplomatic, military and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power,” the document said.

“We will identify the optimal pathway to deliver nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy at the earliest achievable date”.

Mr Sullivan’s comments followed a series of failed attempts over the last week by senior US and European officials, including French president Emmanuel Macron and British foreign secretary Liz Truss, to broker an agreement in Moscow with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop the Russian troop build up on the border of Ukraine.

– With The Wall Street Journal