US President Joe Biden declared “total” unity among Western powers on Monday after crisis talks with European leaders on deterring Russia from an attack against Ukraine, while the Pentagon said that 8,500 US troops were put on standby for possible deployment to boost NATO.
“I had a very, very, very good meeting — total unanimity with all the European leaders,” Biden told reporters shortly after finishing a 1 hour, 20 minute videoconference with allied leaders from Europe and NATO.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “It is up to Russia to undertake visible de-escalation,” while NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenber warned of “severe costs” if there is “any further aggression” by Moscow against Ukraine.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Also on the call were the leaders of France, Italy, Poland and the EU.
Despite insisting he has no intention of attacking, Russian President Vladimir Putin has deployed about 100,000 troops close to Ukraine.
Moscow is demanding a guarantee that Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, never be allowed to join NATO, but the US and NATO have rejected the Russian demands and told Putin to withdraw from Ukraine’s borders.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that a force of up to 8,500 US troops was on “heightened alert” for potential deployment to reinforce any activation of the NATO Response Force in the region, where there are growing fears of spillover from the Ukraine conflict.
“What this is about ... is reassurance to our NATO allies,” Kirby said. “It sends a very clear signal to Mr Putin that we take our responsibilities to NATO seriously.”
NATO also said it was sending jets and ships to bolster its eastern flank.
The tension helped fuel instability in global markets, while Russia’s main stock index plunged and the central bank suspended foreign-currency purchasing after the ruble slumped.
The French government announced that Russian and Ukrainian officials would meet, along with their French and German counterparts, in Paris today to try to find a way out of the impasse.
Yesterday, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Liz Truss said that she would visit Ukraine next week.
“I’ll be visiting Ukraine next week,” Truss told the British parliament.
“A further military incursion by Russia into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake and come with a severe cost on Russia’s economy, including coordinated sanctions,” she said.
Yesterday, Ukraine said that it had dismantled saboteurs controlled by Moscow who were preparing a series of attacks in Ukraine’s border regions to “destabilize” the situation.
The men were planning a “series of armed attacks” on city infrastructure, Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said in a statement, adding that the group was “coordinated by Russian special services.”
The SBU said it arrested two residents of Ukraine, one of them a Russian citizen, and seized “an explosive device, small arms and ammunition.”
The two acted in Kharkov, a city with 1 million people located near the Russian border in the east, and in the town of Zhytomyr in central Ukraine, under the pretext of recruiting personnel for a private security firm, the SBU added.
A source in law enforcement said that the two men were former commandos with combat experience and were recruiting “mainly” Russians who had already committed violent crimes.
Additional reporting by Reuters
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS