A Possible Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is Approaching; Western Countries Are Preparing to Evacuate Their Diplomats

On January 22, 2022, American and German media revealed that the US State Department will evacuate its embassy employees in Kiev and their families during the next few days, in parallel, the German authorities are preparing plans for evacuating its diplomats from the Ukrainian capital.

This comes with rising indications that Russia is about to launch a military attack on its neighbor Ukraine, after several talks in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna over the past week failed to ease tensions and find a diplomatic way out for this unprecedented crisis in Europe since the Cold War.

Western countries accuse Russia of deploying more than 100,000 soldiers on the border with Ukraine in preparation for the invasion of the former Soviet Republic, while the Kremlin denies any intention to launch a war, but it links the containment of escalation to reaching agreements.

 

Dramatic Moves

In the latest indication of Western fear of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, Fox News reported in a breaking news on January 22, 2022 that “the US State Department has asked the families of its diplomats to leave Ukraine starting Monday, January 24, 2022.”

On her part, the US State Department spokeswoman refused, in a statement to AFP on January 22, to confirm what was revealed by the American channel regarding the ministry’s approval to start evacuating Washington embassy employees and their families from Ukraine.

“If the United States decides to evacuate the families of diplomats from Ukraine, they should not expect the government-sponsored evacuation, as commercial flights are currently available to support the departures,” the US State Department spokeswoman said.

“The US administration had previously advised its citizens not to go to Ukraine, and informed them of information that Russia is preparing for a major military operation against Ukraine,” she added.

In turn, a source close to the Ukrainian government confirmed to CNN on January 22 that: “The United States has informed Ukraine that it is likely to begin evacuations as early as next week of the families of diplomats from the embassy in Kiev.”

“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about this, if the United States took such a dramatic step, it would be an overreaction, he told him,” the source said.

In this regard, the German newspaper Bild announced on January 22 that “Berlin has drawn up a plan to evacuate its diplomats from Ukraine, if the situation there deteriorates.”

In parallel, Britain and Belgium urged their citizens not to travel to Ukraine, calling on their nationals there to register with the two countries' embassies.

The United States and its NATO allies express deep concern about the Russian military build-up on the border with Ukraine; these countries had warned Russia of dire economic consequences if it called the attack.

In turn, the Ukrainian President has requested that sanctions now be imposed on Russia, before its possible invasion of his country.

In a related context, on January 22, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Germany of encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade his country, and that was after Berlin refused to deliver weapons to Kiev.

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht had said: “The delivery of weapons to Ukraine will not contribute to defusing the crisis.”

In this context, the United States and its Western allies recently announced the start of providing military aid to Ukraine.

On January 22, the US Embassy in Ukraine reported that Kiev had received the first package of US military aid, more than 90 tons of lethal weapons and ammunition, valued at $200 million.

US officials also told Fox News that “Javelin anti-armor and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles are expected to arrive early next week from the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and from US military stocks.”

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also announced in a statement that it had received a second shipment of technical and military aid from Britain, and the aid included new light anti-tank launchers.

 

Diplomatic Way out

In an effort to defuse a new war looming in this region, Russian and Western officials have conducted intense negotiations on more than one level during the past week.

Also, US and Russian diplomats met in Switzerland on January 10.

NATO and Russia held a meeting in Brussels on January 12, prior to the meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

On January 21, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and American Antony Blinken met in Geneva, and they agreed to meet again in Geneva next week.

The common factor in those meetings was that they all failed to de-escalate tensions, due to the West's refusal to accept Moscow's latest demands.

Russian demands focus on setting limits to NATO expansion on the fringes of Eastern Europe; the withdrawal from the countries that were part of the Soviet Union, specifically Romania and Bulgaria; stop NATO cooperation with Ukraine; and a legal guarantee that Ukraine and Georgia will never join the alliance, as they were previously promised.

Moscow is also requesting direct dialogue between Kiev and the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where the conflict has continued since 2014, which has killed more than 13,000 people.

Although in the past few months Russia has amassed more than 100,000 soldiers near the Ukrainian border, it denies that it intends to invade the former Soviet Republic, and stresses that de-escalation requires legally binding security guarantees from the United States and NATO.

On January 21, the Russian Foreign Minister said: “Russia has no intention of attacking Ukraine. It also does not rule out that the West's hysteria over Ukraine is aimed at covering up Kiev's efforts to undermine the Minsk II agreements.”

On February 12, 2015, the leaders of the Normandy Quartet (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) reached an agreement in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, providing for a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, the establishment of a buffer zone, and the withdrawal of heavy weapons.

This was known as the "Minsk Agreement 2" and is considered a development of the "Minsk Agreement 1" signed on September 20, 2014, by representatives of the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

According to a source in Putin's administration, Reuters reported on January 22 that “political advisers from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany will hold talks within the so-called Normandy format in Paris, on January 25 or 26, to discuss developments in eastern Ukraine.”

 

Hard-to-Predict Scenarios

In this regard, political analyst Mahmoud Alloush said in a statement to Al-Estiklal that: “Western fears of an imminent US invasion of Ukraine seem justified given the Russian military build-up on the border and the talks between Moscow and the Westerners failed to reach a settlement.”

“Putin’s brinkmanship and ambiguity about his future steps put Westerners in the dilemma of speculating on the trajectories of the crisis. Therefore, the Americans are seeking to put their European allies on constant alert and prepare for the worst-case scenario, which is an invasion,” he adds.

“It may be understood from the Russian crowd on the Ukrainian border as an attempt to intimidate the Westerners in order to extract concessions from them at the negotiation table,” Alloush notes.

“No one can predict how the Russian president will think about managing this crisis. Putin has put the West in a state of uncertainty, and has made a tough package of demands that he can't back down and that the West can't accept. Even if Putin seeks a peaceful settlement of the current conflict, he wants it to be a settlement with a taste of victory,” he points out.

“While if Putin decides to go with the option of a military invasion of Ukraine, it is not clear what this move will look like and what its limits are. Will he aim to control specific areas with a ground incursion, or will he seek to overthrow the government in Kiev and install others loyal to him? Putin has many options, but he will choose the least expensive one,” according to the political analyst’s point of view.

On the European role in the Ukraine crisis, Alloush says: “The crisis for Europe is an existential crisis and causes them to worry more than others if it is not resolved by peaceful means. On the one hand, the harsh demands made by Putin are aimed at renegotiating the geopolitical and geostrategic arrangements of the post-Cold War world.”

“On the other hand, most Europeans fear the collapse of the eastern front of Europe and its transformation into a very turbulent region. On the third hand, there are great economic interests between Europe and Russia, on top of which is the issue of energy supplies,” Alloush adds.

 

Firm Western Position

On the other hand, the United States and its Western allies took a firm position over the Ukrainian crisis, and pointed out that Russia risks reviving the specter of the Cold War, according to what AFP reported on January 20.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that any encroachment on Ukraine's borders by Russia would lead to a swift and strong response from Washington.

In turn, his German counterpart, Annalina Birbock, affirmed that the United States and its allies will not hesitate to act, even though the response will have economic repercussions on Europe.

On his part, her French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, warned the Russians against any desire to establish Yalta 2, i.e., new division of spheres of influence between the West and the East, that's 77 years after the conference that drew the borders of Europe after World War II.

Britain adopted the same tone, as its Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, warned that any Russian incursion into Ukraine would be a disaster for the world.

Europeans and Americans are still constantly warning that Russia will face severe economic sanctions if it attacks Ukraine.

However, the Kremlin does not care about these threats, especially since it did not acquiesce in them throughout the conflict over Ukraine.

It is noteworthy that relations between Kiev and Moscow were strained in 2014, after popular demonstrations toppled the country's president allied with the Kremlin, Viktor Yanukovych, and Russia's illegal invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.