U.S. Secretary of State warns of “consequences” if Putin overreaches; Israelis, Arabs closely monitoring situation to discern Putin’s intentions, Biden’s response
U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin (Photo: Shutterstock)
JERUSALEM – Is Vladimir Putin, the would-be czar of Russia, preparing to launch a new war in Eastern Europe?
Fears of a bloody new European conflict are growing from Kiev to Brussels, from Washington to Jerusalem. And rightly so.
“Russia now has more troops on the border with Ukraine than at any time since 2014,” and Ukrainian forces are dying, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki of the year that Russian forces seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, and seized a swath of Ukrainian territory in the eastern Donbas region. “These are all deeply concerning signs.”
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces told CNN that “an estimated 50,000 Russian troops have now gathered across the Russian border and in Crimea” and that “there are at least 35,000 Russian-backed separatists in rebel-held areas of Ukraine.”