F-16s sent forward from 52 FW Spangdahlem AB, Germany to Romania

U.S. aircraft heading to Romania to enhance NATO collective defense > <p style=font-size:20px>U.S. Air Forces in Europe & Air Forces Africa</p> > Press Releases

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...inter-olympics

Ukraine crisis: Biden talks to allies as US warns Russia could invade ‘at any time’

Lotta curious stuff coming out of the mouth of the Prez, but none more curious than

“I'm hoping that if in fact he's foolish enough to go in, he's smart enough not to in fact do anything that would negatively impact on American citizens.“

…sure! Don’t go in, But yeah, if you do, kindly limit the damage to the non-American citizens.

That reads to me any American citizen harmed in this and you will be dealing with the US forces as well.

This is starting to look like Munich Mark II … and I’m getting less comfortable by the day. Putin’s megalomania is over-riding any form of common sense, unless this aggressive posturing is, for some obscure reason, for domestic consumption.

I’d be interested to see how much it’s actually costing Russia, it won’t be cheap moving all the assets about for a sustained threat.

Spiegel is reporting that US intelligence (claimed to be SIGINT, but I guess they would say that) has been shared with European allies. It is reported to contain relatively detailed plans of the invasion and a date of next Wednesday (16th Feb). In other news, Lavrov has just cancelled a visit to Israel that was scheduled for early next week citing "personal reasons". I guess we are going to find out soon...

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deuts...pPYDCQgO1dEMph

Scary I have to say.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...on-as-possible

Foreign Office tells Britons in Ukraine to leave country now

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukra...plomats-leave/

EU Tells Citizens to Leave Ukraine Now

In addition to the U.S., the United Kingdom, Latvia, Denmark, Israel, Estonia, Norway, Japan and South Korea all directed their citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible.….

I know there are a great many people on this thread who have knowledge and experience of international relations. Many will have spent time in other countries, served with their militaries, done attaché roles etc.
Does this feel familiar or predictable? To me, it does not.
Putin is stuck. He did not want to invade so he created a threat in order to get some concessions. It has not worked - his bluff has been called He now has to attack, or back down. Neither option is appealing to him.

Apparently the US have intercepts of 'high level plans' outlining a kick-off next week. Presumably this is why there are now calls for foreign nationals to leave the Ukraine now. I also saw a tweet that the US State Dept. are going to phone each of the 30000 US nationals apparently in Ukraine to confirm their travel plans.

Biden trying to appear strong after the Afghan debacle. Putin is many things but not stupid, it’s unlikely he’d mass 100k troops on the border and then wait for NATO to catch up. If he was going to invade, he’d be inspecting his troops in Kiev by now.

As another poster stated, he tied to force concessions and lost, but he’s not about to start WW3 to save face.

I guess we're about to find out. I hope you're right.

Putin may not be stupid, but that doesn't mean he reliably right and reasonable. This is such a dangerous time, the risk is miscalculation is high. Whichever angels guided JFK in 1962, we need them now.

I am a bit puzzled by the NATO catching up phrase, what do you mean by that? Do you mean Putin has planned to attack a NATO country? That surely would be very foolish.

Those Russian troops have been on the Ukraine border since November - meanwhile NATO have reinforced all the neighbouring NATO members and supplied weapons to Ukraine.

it’s hardly the classic ‘lightning strike’ favoured by the Russians.

Global Hawks or even RC135W are there several days a week.. e.g.
https://s20.directupload.net/images/220127/kzmh35ia.png
That screenshot was taken by me Jan, 27th.

Telling Citizens to leave Ukraine is a message to the Russians that their plans are known, and an attack is imminent and expected.

It is also stating that Russia will be fighting against a well prepared and supplied coalition of defenders from many nations.

A "get out of Western Russia" to other Citizens would send a similar message.

Some very careful thinking on both sides needs to happen to allow Russia to extract itself from this quagmire in more senses than one.

IG

Even russian media is reporting their embassy in ukraine is being evacuated