US says Russia may create pretext to attack Ukraine

WASHINGTON/KYIV: The United States said on Sunday that Russia could invade Ukraine "any day now" and might create a surprise pretext for an attack, as the German chancellor prepared for talks this week with President Vladimir Putin to try to ease the crisis.

Washington has said the door for diplomacy remained open but it has also repeatedly said Russia's military, which has more than 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, was poised to act.

Moscow denies any such plans and has called comments "hysteria", but no breakthrough that could ease the crisis has yet emerged from high-level talks between top Russian and Western officials in recent days.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for Russia to de-escalate on the eve of his trip that takes him to Kyiv on Monday and Moscow on Tuesday. A German official said Berlin did not expect "concrete results" but said diplomacy was important.

Scholz warned of sanctions if Moscow did invade.

"We cannot perfectly predict the day, but we have now been saying for some time that we are in the window, and an invasion could begin - a major military action could begin - by Russia in Ukraine any day now," White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN.

Sullivan said Washington would continue sharing intelligence with the world to deny Moscow the ability to stage a surprise "false flag" operation that could be a pretext for an attack.

US officials said they could not confirm reports that US intelligence indicated Russia planned to invade on Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden, who is due to speak to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday, told Putin in a call on Saturday the West would respond decisively to any invasion and such an attack would harm and isolate Moscow.

A senior US administration official said Biden's cal l was substantive but that there was no fundamental change.

The Kremlin said Putin told Biden that Washington had failed to take Russia's main concerns into account and it had received no "substantial answer" on key elements of its security demands.

Putin wants guarantees from the United States and Nato that include blocking Ukraine's entry into Nato, refraining from missile deployments near Russia's borders and scaling back Nato's military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels. Washington regards many of the proposals as non-starters but has pushed the Kremlin to discuss them jointly with Washington and its European allies.