While the U.S. and Western allies watch to see if Russia follows through on an announced troop draw down near Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden is sticking with a remarkably public and increasingly urgent campaign to stave off a possible Russian invasion.

After the U.S. concluded that President Vladimir Putin was seriously considering an invasion, the Biden administration began pressing allies to agree on a sanctions package, releasing classified information about Russian troop movements and sharing intelligence about a purported plan for false-flag operations that could create a pretext for war.

In recent days, the U.S. has also ordered its diplomats to leave Kyiv, pulled back military advisers working with Ukraine’s military and dispatched thousands of troops to bolster Poland and Romania. In calls with foreign leaders, Biden has laid out American concerns and warned that an invasion could occur in days. 

And on Tuesday afternoon, Biden said an invasion remains “distinctly possible” while warning that the U.S. had not yet verified the Kremlin’s claims that it was removing some troops from the border areas.

“We’ve been transparent with the American people -- and with the world -- about Russia’s plans and the seriousness of the situation, so that everyone can see for themselves what is happening,” Biden said in a statement from the White House.

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The open U.S. effort has prompted Russia -- which has repeatedly denied it seeks to attack Ukraine -- to criticize the American rhetoric as “hysteria.” But the strategy has drawn scrutiny even among some close European allies and prompted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to make sarcastic comments that spooked jittery world markets this week. 

“They scare us with the big war and once again appoint the date of military invasion,” Zelenskiy, a former comedian, said in a video address late Monday. “We seek peace and want to resolve all issues only via negotiations.”

In Paris and Berlin, officials have never denied the risks posed to Ukraine, but their messages have lacked the same urgency as the U.S., and even urged caution.

One top French government official described the U.S. as maximizing “pressure,” with one minister wondering whether the alarmist U.S. tone was guided by domestic considerations. Aides to President Emmanuel Macron, who reached out to Putin early in his mandate, have insisted that the West not make “self-fulfilling” statements.

In Berlin, a senior German official said that as long as Putin hadn’t made a decision to act, it was futile to speculate on his plans -- and that it was possible the Russian leader himself hadn’t figured out his strategy. Putin has said NATO’s expansion is a national security threat and has sought security guarantees from the Western alliance. 

Biden administration officials say their strategy is simply a response to what they see as a real and growing threat from Russia. By releasing intelligence on Russian military formations near the Ukraine border and circulating lists of potentially dire economic sanctions, the U.S. seeks to deter Putin from any potential invasion, according to administration officials.

White House officials -- many of whom served in the Obama administration and saw Putin’s disinformation efforts in the buildup to the 2014 annexation of Crimea -- also believe that their flood of normally-classified information can prove a deterrent by underscoring the reach of American intelligence to the Kremlin. 

More tangibly, they argue it also robs the element of surprise from any potential disinformation effort, and throws immediate skepticism on any Russian justification for military action. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the objective “is to deny Russia the opportunity to use some of the tactics, sometimes some of the lies that they have done in the past to justify an invasion of Ukraine.”

With the U.S. and NATO leaders unwilling to put their troops on the line in Ukraine, leaks from Western negotiations and public statements have focused on the financial penalties that could hit Putin and his partners personally, disrupt Russia’s ability to access global financial networks, kill a valuable natural gas pipeline and cripple key industries in case of attack. 

Given how Russia has sought to insulate its economy from the risk of Western sanctions, it’s not clear whether they would have the desired impact. But the measures also risk hurting European economies more than the U.S., leaving some allies wary of adopting them in totality. 

Following intelligence breakdowns in predicting Afghanistan’s rapid collapse to the Taliban and issues dating back to the second Iraq War, the intelligence releases have sparked some skepticism, with the administration saying it can’t provide more direct evidence of its claims because of the need to protect sources and methods. 

On the other hand, the risk for the U.S. if it were propagating bad intelligence is losing credibility in Europe amid the sanctions push -- while also revealing to Putin that Washington had little insight to his actions.

The campaign’s effectiveness has been ambiguous. Russia’s announcement Tuesday that it was withdrawing some troops from border regions after completing military exercises could be a signal that the U.S. effort is paying dividends -- or an indication Washington has been over-hyping the threat all along.

While it will take time to know if the Biden approach has worked, in the short-term it hasn’t offered any rally-around-the-flag political benefits with voters. Just 40 per cent of respondents in a CBS News/YouGov poll released over the weekend said they approved of the way Biden was handling issues with Russia, while a majority of Americans -- 53 per cent -- said the U.S. should stay out of the matter entirely.

But the Biden administration approach has won plaudits from an unlikely corner: Republicans. 

Many members of the GOP are largely backing the administration’s strategy, and few have publicly questioned the intelligence provided by the White House -- including allegations, rejected by Moscow, that Russia planned to film a propaganda video involving staged explosions and the use of corpses to fake an attack by Ukrainian forces or NATO allies.

“These things could rapidly escalate into something far more dangerous,” Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a briefing with administration officials on Monday. “So this is a very tense moment.”

 

'AVERT A WAR'

Administration officials say their warnings represent an acceptance of the realities on the ground. U.S. officials were reluctant at first to give Putin attention in the early days of the military buildup -- downplaying the troop movements publicly despite concerns growing internally. But now, they say, the threat is undeniable and obvious.

“We are trying to stop a war, to prevent a war, to avert a war,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday. “All we can do is come here before you in good faith and share everything that we know to the best of our ability.”