WASHINGTON — The United States’ top military and defense commanders on Friday added their voices to stark warnings that Russia may be about to invade Ukraine, while the president of the former Soviet Republic separately worked to calm his citizens, who have weathered years of Russian malfeasance and subterfuge.
“War is not inevitable,” said a stone-faced Gen. Mark Milley, the nation’s most senior military official. But, he added, “Given the type of forces arrayed … if that was unleashed on Ukraine, it would be significant, very significant, and it would result in a significant amount of casualties.”
Such a military action would be “horrific” as Russian troops pushed through dense urban areas in the dead of winter, he said.
Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III at a news conference in the Pentagon. The leaders’ joint address to the media signified the Biden administration’s efforts to send messages of unity to NATO and of painful consequences to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The last time the two appeared together in such a forum was during the fall of Afghanistan and hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops, ending a 20-year war.
Both Austin and Milley said a Russian invasion might yet be averted by diplomatic efforts.
But they said Putin’s amassing of more than a hundred thousand Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders gave the former KGB leader “a range of options” to pursue.
“I don’t believe Putin has made a final decision” to invade, Austin said, “but he clearly now has that capability.”
The U.S. has put 8,500 American troops on alert in the U.S., able to deploy quickly to the eastern flank of NATO — not Ukraine proper — quickly. The U.S. and other NATO countries have been shipping millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, with the U.S. sending $650 million in the past year, according to Austin.
Milley noted that Ukraine’s military is more capable now than in 2014, when Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula and threw its support behind separatist fighters in two eastern Ukrainian regions.
Moscow is suspected of cyberattacks inside Ukraine and intense disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining the government in Kyiv.
Leaders and top diplomats from the U.S. and across Europe have spent weeks attempting to talk Putin out of invading the besieged pro-West country.
The Russians insisted Washington and NATO provide a written response to Moscow’s demands, chief among them that Ukraine never be allowed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Western officials delivered the missive this week but rejected that proposal out of hand, insisting all countries should be allowed to apply for NATO membership.
Putin spoke Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron in the latest round of diplomacy aimed at easing tensions. The exchange was tense, French media reported. The Kremlin said Putin groused to Macron that the U.S. and NATO had failed to take his demands seriously.
Biden may not have been having better luck. He spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday to warn of the “distinct possibility” of a Russian invasion, the White House said. Zelenskyy said he appreciated Western support but cautioned against stoking panic over an invasion, according to his office. Officials in Kyiv are worried that talk of war will trigger the flight of both people and capital.