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Video duration 03 minutes 58 seconds
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that indications indicate Russia’s intention to invade its neighbor Ukraine, echoing warnings issued by US President Joe Biden on Friday.
And the French press agency quoted – late on Saturday – Stoltenberg, as saying that “all indications point to Russia’s intention to launch a comprehensive attack.”
The agency also quoted an official as saying that NATO has moved staff from its two headquarters in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to the Belgian capital, Brussels, or to the city of Lviv in western Ukraine.
But the official added that NATO offices in Ukraine are still operating.
NATO’s warnings come after US President Joe Biden said – on Friday – that he is convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine, and that Russian forces intend to start the offensive in the coming days.
Biden added that he believed Russian forces would target the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, but did not see Putin considering the use of nuclear weapons.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a news conference in Lithuania that Russian forces had begun to “get closer” to the border with their ex-Soviet neighbour.
But he expressed hope that Putin would retreat from the brink of war, and added that an invasion of Ukraine could be avoided.
on the seam lines
On the ground, Al-Jazeera correspondent reported late on Saturday that the sounds of heavy artillery and shells are resounding in the northern and western neighborhoods of Donetsk city, which is controlled by pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Reuters news agency said huge explosions were also heard in the city center.
The agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying that observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe recorded, on Saturday, about two thousand violations of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, which is the largest number recorded since the beginning of the year.
Earlier, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors announced that they had recorded more than 1,500 violations between Thursday evening and Friday evening, namely: 591 breaches in Donetsk, and 975 breaches in neighboring Lugansk, and both regions are partly under the control of the Moscow-backed separatists, who are fighting Ukrainian forces. Since 2014.
The separatist leaders announced a general military mobilization and ordered the evacuation of the women and children to Russia due to what they said was the possibility of an imminent attack by Ukrainian forces.
Kiev categorically denied this accusation, and said – along with Western leaders – that the mobilization, evacuation and escalation of bombing on the ceasefire line during the past days is part of Russia’s plan to create a pretext for the invasion of Ukraine.
And the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries said when they met – yesterday, Saturday, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference – that they see no evidence that Russia is reducing its military activity near the borders of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia conducted maneuvers of the Strategic Nuclear Missile Forces, followed by President Vladimir Putin from Moscow with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.
The exercises included launching ICBMs, simulating a nuclear attack, and extensive military exercises with Belarus.
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