No need for allied forces to face Russian invasion: Ukraine

UKRAINE: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday Ukraine had "no need" for foreign allied forces to face down a feared Russian invasion, warning that their presence might only exacerbate tensions.

"We have no need for soldiers with foreign flags on our territory. We are not asking for that. Otherwise, the entire world would be destabilised," the Ukrainian president told the RBK Ukraine website.

And US President Joe Biden warned that the threat of Russian invasion was "very high." Russia has repeatedly denied it is planning an invasion of Ukraine, and repeated on Thursday that it is not planning any attack.

But the US says Moscow has continued building up its forces and combat readiness along the border with its Eastern European neighbour, despite the Kremlin saying it was pulling back troops.

A senior State Department official said the US had watched with growing alarm as Russia claimed to be de-escalating on Wednesday, but in fact appeared to be escalating. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the situation bore a resemblance to the phase that preceded Moscow's incursion into Georgia in 2008.

The official also said the US was concerned by the recent shelling in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine and cited what Washington says are preparations to fabricate a pretext for invasion, an accusation echoed by Nato.

Britain took the accusation one step further on Thursday, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson declaring that the shelling of a kindergarten in eastern Ukraine was "a false flag operation designed to discredit the Ukrainians, designed to create a pretext, a spurious provocation for Russian action."

"We fear very much that is the kind of thing we will see more of over the next few days. The picture is continuing to be very grim," he added. His assertion came after Kyiv and Moscow traded allegations over intensified fighting involving Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, with the US government also warning that Russia appeared to be moving towards an invasion.

The Ukrainian military's command centre in the country's east alleged that Russian-backed forces had, "with special cynicism", fired heavy artillery at the village of Stanytsia-Luganska. Russia is moving toward an "imminent invasion" of Ukraine, the US envoy to the United Nations warned on Thursday ahead of what is expected to be a heated meeting of the Security Council on the ongoing crisis.

As tensions surged again over the possibility of a Russian assault, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Secretary of State Antony Blinken would address the Council meeting on Ukraine on "to signal our intense commitment to diplomacy." "Our goal is to convey the gravity of the situation.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned again in Brussels that Russia could be seeking an excuse to invade. "We´ve said for some time that the Russians might do something like this in order to justify a military conflict. So we´ll be watching this very closely," Austin told journalists after a meeting with NATO defense ministers.