Russian invasion of Ukraine could be ‘biggest war in Europe since 1945’: UK

The plans that the West is seeing in Ukraine’s border suggest that a Russian invasion could be “the biggest war in Europe since 1945 in terms of sheer scale”, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Saturday.

“All the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun,” Johnson told BBC. “People need to understand the sheer cost in human life that could entail.”

Even as the British PM expressed concerns over the escalating tensions in the region, Russia’s strategic nuclear forces held exercises overseen by President Vladimir Putin, and Washington accused Russian troops massed near Ukraine’s border of being “poised to strike”.

The White House said President Joe Biden’s national security team told him they still believed Russia could launch an attack in Ukraine “at any time”. The president planned to convene his top advisers on Sunday to discuss the crisis, it said.

Foreign ministers from the G7 group of nations said they had seen no evidence Russia was reducing its military activity in the area and remained “gravely concerned” about the situation.

After Ukraine and Russia traded accusations over new shelling near the border, France and Germany urged all or some of their citizens in Ukraine to leave. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Russian forces were beginning to “uncoil and move closer” to the border. “We hope he [Putin] steps back from the brink of conflict,” Austin said in the Baltic state of Lithuania.

Russia ordered the military build-up while demanding NATO prevent Ukraine from ever joining the alliance, but says Western warnings that it is planning to invade Ukraine are hysterical and dangerous. Moscow says it is pulling back, but Washington and allies say the build-up is mounting.

Washington and NATO say Moscow’s main demands are non-starters, but in Ukraine fears are growing over Putin’s plans.

At a security conference in Munich, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the global security architecture was “almost broken” and urged the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and Turkey to meet to draw up new security guarantees for his country.

“The rules that the world agreed on decades ago no longer work,” Zelenskiy said. “They do not keep up with new threats… This is a cough syrup when you need a coronavirus vaccine.”