[ad_1]
The US has intelligence that Russian commanders have already received their orders to invade Ukraine, a report said Sunday — and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he doesn’t believe President Vladimir Putin is “bluffing.”
“He’s been very deliberate in terms of assembling the right kind of combat and combat support capabilities in the border region, and so he has a number of options available to him there. And he could, he could attack in short order,” Austin told host Martha Raddatz on ABC News’ “This Week.”
“This is not a bluff?” Raddatz asked.
“No, I don’t believe it’s a bluff,” the secretary responded, adding that he thinks the Russian president has gathered the forces and equipment “you would need to conduct a successful invasion.”
On Sunday, CBS News said Russian commanders have received their orders and are making specific plans on how to carry out an invasion.
“So not only are they moving up closer and closer to the border and to these attack positions, but the commanders on the ground are making specific plans for how they would maneuver in their sector of the battlefield,” correspondent David Martin said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
The intelligence shows that “they’re doing everything that American commanders would do once they got the order to proceed,” Martin said.
Austin said that judging from the sheer number of forces — as many as 190,000 troops, along with aircraft, armored vehicles and artillery — that Putin has assembled along Ukraine, “you could see a significant amount of combat power move very quickly now to take Kyiv.
“If he employs that kind of combat power, it will certainly create enormous casualties within the civilian population, and so this could create a tragedy, quite frankly, in terms of refugee flow and displaced people,” the defense secretary said.
“So this is potentially very, very dangerous.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who made the rounds of Sunday news shows, noted to “Face the Nation” that joint-military exercises between Russia and Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north, were scheduled to end Sunday but are being extended.
“Everything we’re seeing tells us that the decision we believe President Putin has made to invade is moving forward,” Blinken said.
“We’ve seen that with provocations created by the Russians or separatist forces over the weekend, false flag operations, now the news just this morning that the ‘exercises’ Russia was engaged in in Belarus with 30,000 Russian forces that was supposed to end this weekend will now continue because of tensions in eastern Ukraine, tensions created by Russia and the separatist forces it backs there,” Blinken said.
Putin has denied claims that he will attack Ukraine and has repeatedly insisted that Russian forces are being drawn down on the border.
But Austin was deeply skeptical that was actually happening.
“If they were redeploying to garrison, we wouldn’t be seeing the kinds of things in terms of, not only combat power, but also logistical support, medical support, combat aviation that we’ve seen in the region,” he said on “This Week.”
He said the administration has “high confidence in the things that we’re looking at.”
“Of course, you know, in terms of being able to predict exactly what’s going to happen going forward, you never can. I mean, you can assess what you see, present it to you and what you’re seeing happening on the ground, but, again, I think you have to look at every possibility, which is what we do,” Austin said.
[ad_2]