Fears of Ukraine invasion rise as top Russian commanders fly to Belarus for massive joint military drill

MOSCOW — Top Russian military commanders flew into neighboring Belarus on Wednesday for a massive military exercise amid Western alarm that it could provide cover for a multipronged invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s chief of the armed forces’ General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, arrived in Belarus ahead of a 10-day Russian-Belarusian drill beginning Thursday, as senior Russian Foreign Ministry officials accused the West of “blackmail and pressure” and of stoking tensions by arming Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was conducting the joint exercise with Belarus to confront “unprecedented security threats.”

“Russia and Belarus have encountered unprecedented threats, the nature and, perhaps, concentration of which are, unfortunately, much larger and much more dangerous than before,” he told reporters.

Russia has launched a series of simultaneous rapid-fire military exercises and has deployed warships to the Black Sea, while Ukraine announced its own 10-day military drills starting Thursday, using unmanned aircraft and antitank missiles supplied by Kyiv’s Western partners.

After months of a massive Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, military analysts are warning that the final pieces are largely in place for a major strike that could topple Kyiv’s pro-Western government and reassert Moscow’s control.

Russia has long sought to deter Ukraine’s tilt to the West, with President Vladimir Putin warning that Ukraine’s aim to join NATO was a “red line” that strikes at Russian security.

Shuttle diplomacy by top U.S. and European officials, including French President Emmanuel Macron’s trips to Moscow and Kyiv this week, have produced no clear breakthrough. Moscow is demanding a sweeping rewrite of the post-Cold War European security order, including an end to NATO expansion and removal of alliance forces and troops from Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.

Washington and NATO have rejected these demands, offering limited concessions on arms control. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday that Russia is still considering its response and that a final decision would be made by Putin.

Ryabkov said that “everything else depends” on whether the United States and NATO are willing to negotiate seriously on Russia’s demands. But so far, he said, the U.S. proposal to Russia contained “unacceptable statements,” while NATO’s document offered “rudeness and defiant language.”

NATO diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about internal strategic discussions, said they worry that Putin’s demands are so expansive that there is little or no room for a compromise that all sides would find acceptable.

In Europe, fears of a Russian invasion are growing, according to an opinion poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations, which found that a majority in six of the seven countries surveyed thought this would happen.

The poll suggested that Europeans support efforts by NATO, the European Union and United States to stand up for Ukraine and that they believe Russian aggression against Ukraine could affect European security.

The survey in late January found that expectations of a Russian invasion were highest in Poland (73 percent) and Romania (64 percent), former Warsaw Pact countries that were aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In France, Italy and Germany, just over half the population thought Russia would invade Ukraine, and 55 percent of Swedes believed it would occur. In Finland, 44 percent thought so.

The survey found that the majority of respondents saw Russian action against Ukraine as posing potential threats to Europe in terms of energy supplies, military action and cyberattacks. Sixty-two percent thought NATO should come to Ukraine’s defense; 60 percent thought the European Union should do so, and 54 percent thought the United States should defend Ukraine.

During his visit to Moscow, Macron has said, Putin told him that Russia would not further escalate the crisis. Peskov and Belarusian officials have said Russian troops will return to their bases after the joint exercise in Belarus.

Three Russian amphibious landing vessels from Russia’s Baltic Fleet entered the Black Sea on Wednesday, with three more to follow. The Russian navy said Tuesday the ships would take part in an exercise, but the military has used that as a bluff before past invasions.

In Ukraine, troops will begin drills Thursday using armed drones and antitank weapons provided by the United States and other NATO members. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has said the drills, scheduled to take place through Feb. 20, are a response to the Russian exercises near the border.

Reznikov said Tuesday that Ukraine hopes to receive military equipment soon from the West that “we have long dreamed of.” He did not offer details. He said Russia has massed 140,000 service members in the region.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss departed for Moscow on Wednesday for a two-day trip to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. She warned recently that Russia faces tough sanctions if it attacks Ukraine, including moves against Russian oligarchs and figures close to Putin who help to keep him in power.

She plans “to call on the Kremlin to de-escalate and stop the aggression against Ukraine,” according to a British Foreign Office statement Wednesday.

In Australia, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said American officials have engaged in 200 diplomatic meetings, calls and video conferences in recent weeks “where we have been working to coordinate all of our partners in standing up to this Russian aggression directed toward Ukraine.”

Blinken is in Melbourne for a meeting of the representatives of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad countries — Australia, Japan, India and the United States — a grouping viewed with distrust in Beijing and Moscow.

He said he plans to discuss the Ukraine crisis with counterparts in France, Germany and Britain in the coming days.

In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki hit back at suggestions that the United States was out of the loop on the French president’s shuttle diplomacy. President Biden spoke with Macron twice over the past week, she said — including on Sunday, the day before Macron spoke with Putin — and the pair are expected to talk again soon.

“There are a range of diplomatic conversations happening all the time,” she told reporters. “The United States is a key player in the vast majority of those negotiations.”

Macron, who has long called for France to help lead a European foreign policy that is allied with but independent of Washington, has cast himself as a key interlocutor as the Kremlin demands a reworking of the continent’s security architecture.

Congressional leaders in the United States also joined Biden in downplaying any ambiguity about Germany’s support for ending a major natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany if Moscow attacks.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had dinner with Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday alongside other lawmakers, said the German leader had assured them behind closed doors that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project would be abandoned — as promised by Biden — if Moscow again sends forces into Ukraine.

Scholz, who is from a center-left party that has Russia-friendly elements, has not made such a definitive commitment in public.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Washington Post Live that he left the same dinner “convinced” that Berlin is in lockstep with Washington on potential actions in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine. He also signaled there is strong support on both sides of U.S. politics for sanctions to severely punish Moscow if it launches a renewed invasion.

“There is no light, I think, between Democrats and Republicans on the desire and the need to push back on Vladimir Putin and to exact enormous consequences for any miscalculation of an invasion by Putin,” he said. “The only questions may be some of the specific tactics to do that.”

Lawmakers negotiating a bill that would allow for punitive measures against Russia are getting “closer and closer” to a deal, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday. One remaining point of difference is whether to impose sanctions before or after any renewed Russian invasion, he said.

U.S. and European officials are eyeing the next 12 days with increasing concern, fearing that the Russian military exercises scheduled to start Thursday could provide cover for a sudden strike against Ukraine and that the Feb. 20 conclusion of the Winter Olympics in Beijing will clear a potential diplomatic barrier for Putin, who may fear upstaging Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Pannett reported from Sydney. Michael Birnbaum, Shane Harris and Amy B Wang in Washington contributed to this report.