In the midst of a deadly escalation in fighting, Ukraine’s Russian-backed breakaway eastern territories have ordered military mobilization.
Men of the fighting age have been placed on alert in the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
US Vice President Joe Biden believes Russia will invade Ukraine, an allegation Moscow denies.
Western nations have accused Russia of staging a phony crisis in the eastern regions as a pretext for an invasion.
According to international monitors, there has been a “dramatic increase” in attacks along the line separating rebel and government forces.
On Saturday morning, a Ukrainian soldier was killed by shelling, the first such death in weeks.
Lloyd Austin, Mr. Biden’s Defense Secretary, said Russian forces were beginning to “uncoil and move closer” to the Ukrainian border
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US Vice President Kamala Harris told a security conference in Munich, Germany, that if Russia invaded, the US and its allies would impose a “significant and unprecedented economic cost,” targeting its financial institutions and key industries, as well as those who aided and abetted such an invasion.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson echoed her remarks, saying that in the event of an invasion, his country would “open up the Matryoshka dolls” of strategic Russian-owned companies, making it impossible for them to raise finance in London.
Mr. Johnson met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in Munich for the security conference despite President Biden’s advice that it might not be a “wise choice” for the Ukrainian leader to be out of his country at this time.
The US estimates that there are 169,000 to 190,000 Russian troops stationed along Ukraine’s borders, including separatist fighters in Donetsk and Luhansk.
