It is this information that prompted US President Joe Biden to claim on Friday that he was “convinced” that Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to attack Ukraine, the Washington Post reported, and attributed this information to anonymous sources.
AFP contacted the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department, which neither confirmed nor denied this information, which was also reported by other US media.
A source in the Pentagon said, on Friday, that more than 40% of the Russian forces on the Ukrainian border are at the site of an attack, noting that the Russian-led destabilization in the country “has begun.”
The same source said that the movements of Russian forces towards the Ukrainian border have been monitored since Wednesday.
Washington has warned for weeks that Russia would provoke an incident on the Ukrainian border to justify an invasion of Ukraine. The head of US diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, reiterated on Sunday that “everything” indicated that Russia was “on the verge” of invading Ukraine.
Russia denies any plan to invade but demands security guarantees such as the withdrawal of NATO from Eastern Europe, a demand rejected by the West.
Macron and Putin held another one-hour meeting on Ukraine
The Elysee announced, on Sunday evening, that the Presidents of France, Emmanuel Macron, and Russia, Vladimir Putin, spoke for another hour, for the second time during the day, to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.
Macron spoke with Putin for about two hours in the afternoon.In the framework of discussions between heads of state to try to prevent the outbreak of armed conflict in eastern Ukraine.
“Given the seriousness of the current situation, the presidents acknowledged that it would be desirable to intensify the search for solutions by diplomatic means through the foreign policy departments and political advisors of the leaders of the Normandy formula” (Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France), the Kremlin said in a statement.
And the French presidency announced that the two leaders agreed to carry out “intense work” leading to a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
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