More Scaremongering about Alleged Russian Plans To Invade Ukraine

Feb. 6, 2022 (EIRNS)—Americans are being hit with an unrelenting barrage of war propaganda. The scaremongering about an ostensible Russian invasion of Ukraine intensified overnight with new stories appearing in the New York Times and the Washington Post—stories which were then widely covered by other media—based on leaks from the Feb. 3 briefings to Congress by Secretary of State Blinken, Defense Secretary Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley.

“Senior Biden administration officials told lawmakers this past week that they believed the Russian military had assembled 70% of the forces it would need to mount a full invasion of Ukraine, painting the most ominous picture yet of the options that Russia’s President, Vladimir V. Putin, has created for himself in recent weeks,” the Times breathlessly reported. “During six hours of closed meetings with House and Senate lawmakers on Thursday, the officials warned that if Mr. Putin chose the most aggressive of his options, he could quickly surround or capture Kiev, the capital, and remove the country’s democratically elected President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”

They also put out scary estimates for casualties of 25,000-50,000 civilians dead, 5,000-25,000 Ukrainian troops killed, along with 3,000-10,000 Russian troops killed. “The invasion, they said, could also result in 1 million to 5 million refugees, with many of them pouring into Poland.”

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also insisted on a Feb. 6, Sunday TV interview that an invasion could take place at any time. “It could happen as soon as tomorrow or it could take some weeks yet,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”  “We’re in the window where something could happen. We believe the Russians have put in place the capabilities to mount a significant operation.”

Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy denounced the press speculation about a Russian invasion of Ukraine as madness. “Madness and scaremongering continue.... What if we would say that U.S. could seize London in a week and cause 300K civilian deaths? All this based on our intelligence sources that we won’t disclose,” Polyanskiy said in a Twitter post. “Would it feel right for Americans and Brits? It’s as wrong for Russians and Ukrainians.”

He accompanied that comment with the link to a tweet by Aaron Maté: “It’s fitting that we get this @washingtonpost headline on the anniversary of Colin Powell’s UN speech” on February 5, 2003, in which he famously justified President Bush’s war against Iraq with nonexistent “evidence,” including test tubes of WMD.