US President urges Americans to leave Ukraine immediately
“American citizens should leave now,” Biden said in a pre-taped interview with NBC News.
“We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”
Biden reiterated that under no circumstances would he send US troops to Ukraine, even to rescue Americans in case of a Russian invasion.
“That’s a world war. When Americans and Russians start shooting one another, we’re in a very different world,” he said.
Biden’s remarks were released hours after Russia rolled its tanks across Belarus for live-fire drills that drew an ominous warning from NATO and added urgency to Western efforts to avert war on the continent.
NATO said Russia’s deployment of missiles, heavy armor, and machine-gun toting soldiers marked a “dangerous moment” for Europe some three decades after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Western leaders have been shuttling to Moscow in an effort to keep the lines of communication open, giving Russia a chance to air its grievances about NATO’s expansion into eastern Europe and ex-Soviet states.
But they have also sought to project their resolve in the face of what they called is Russian escalation of an already-tense situation.
“Russia should not underestimate our unity and determination as a partner in the EU and as an ally in NATO,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned.
In a bid to “reduce chances of miscalculation” during the drills, US and Belarusian defense chiefs held rare telephone talks, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Russia has also sent six warships through the Bosphorus for naval drills on the Black Sea and the neighboring Sea of Azov.
Kyiv condemned their presence as an “unprecedented” attempt to cut off Ukraine from both seas.
Moscow and Minsk have not disclosed how many troops are participating, but the United States has said around 30,000 soldiers were being dispatched to Belarus from locations including Russia’s Far East.
‘Disappointed’
Russia’s defense ministry insisted the exercises would center around “suppressing and repelling external aggression” and the Kremlin has promised the troops will go home after the exercises.
But Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said “the accumulation of forces at the border is psychological pressure from our neighbors.”
Kyiv has launched its own military drills expected to mirror Russia’s games, but officials have said little about them out of apparent fear of escalating tensions.
Russia is seeking written guarantees that NATO will withdraw its presence from eastern Europe and never expand into Ukraine.
The United States and NATO have officially rejected Russia’s demands.
Washington has, however, floated the idea of the sides striking a new disarmament agreement for Europe – an offer viewed as dramatically insufficient by Moscow.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was the latest Western diplomat to travel to Moscow on Thursday, where she reported receiving promises from her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that the Kremlin had no plans to invade Ukraine.
