‘We’re in an urgent situation’ with Russia and Ukraine, Biden’s national security adviser warns

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a telephone conversation with US President Biden on Saturday at 7 p.m. Moscow time (11 a.m. ET), Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN on Friday.

According to Peskov, a telephone conversation between Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron is also planned on Saturday.

A person familiar with the matter told CNN earlier that Biden and Putin would speak tomorrow.

At a White House press briefing today, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the two men would speak by phone, but didn’t say when.

Biden last spoke to Putin at the end of December. Prior to that, on Dec. 7, they had negotiations via videoconference. The first face-to-face meeting between Putin and Biden as leaders of state took place in Geneva in June 2021.

Biden is spending the weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat.

The State Department is calling Americans in Ukraine to find out if they have plans to leave as the US continues to urge Americans to depart the country.  

Lee Humerian, an American living in Ukraine with his family and working as a missionary, told CNN that he got a call from the State Department on Friday asking if he had plans to leave the country.

The State Department official asked if he read the most recent email from the State Department encouraging Americans to leave, he said. He told her he had read it and he did not have plans to leave.  

Humerian registered with the State Department’s program that tracks Americans abroad.

The State Department did not immediately respond to request for comment about these calls.

The meeting of President Biden’s top national security aides in the Situation Room Thursday night was abruptly scheduled in the context of Russia’s escalating military buildup and had not been organized in advance, a source familiar with the meeting said.  

Biden joined for part of the meeting, CNN previously reported. 

Following Thursday night’s meeting, officials have begun warning publicly that Russia could invade Ukraine before the end of the Olympics. 

“Russians are in a position to be able to mount a major military action in Ukraine in day now,” Sullivan said.

Today’s urgent messages from Biden’s top aides comes after last week they had decided to no longer use the word “imminent” to describe the likelihood of an invasion. 

“I used that once. I think others have used that once. And then we stopped using it because I think it sent a message that we weren’t intending to send, which was that we knew President Putin had made a decision,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

A British diplomat tells CNN that staff are not evacuating the British Embassy in Kyiv, but they are “temporarily removing all nonessential staff and dependents” and “a core team will remain to continue with essential duties.”

A European Union spokesperson added it will not evacuate its staff from Kyiv: “We are not evacuating. For the time being, the nonessential staff has been given the opportunity to telework from outside the country.”

Earlier: The UK government advised nationals in Ukraine to leave now while commercial means are still available, according to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered 3,000 more soldiers from the 82nd Airborne to deploy to Poland amid rising concern about Russia’s potential invasion of Ukraine, according to a senior defense official. The troops will leave in the next couple of days, joining about 1,700 members of the unit already there. 

The soldiers will fall under the command of Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, who was the commander of forces during the final evacuation and withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Three hundred members of the 18th Airborne Corps have also arrived in Germany, the official said. They are under the command of Lt. Gen. Michael Kurilla, slated to be the next commander of US Central Command.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that the White House has approved a plan for members of the 82nd Airborne in Poland to help Americans who may try to leave Ukraine. The troops will begin setting up processing areas and temporary shelters.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron will speak Saturday at noon local time (or 6 a.m. ET), according to Élysée Palace.

Macron met with Putin on Monday in Moscow, and he said he and the Russian president were able to find “points of convergence” over the crisis.

Ukrainian authorities discussed the threat from “provocations” during heightened tensions caused by the buildup of Russian forces around the borders of Ukraine and insisted that cities under threat will be protected.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, was asked at a press briefing in the city of Kharkiv about possible provocations that Russia might blame on Ukraine, so-called false flag operations.

“We are currently considering any issues. Every day we receive information from our services,” he said.

“We have heard so far about the Chernobyl [nuclear] station, we have heard about the territory of the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and about other facilities both in our territory and in the occupied Crimea, and in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” he said.

The Chernobyl area near the border with Belarus is an exclusion zone after the disaster at its nuclear plant in 1986. Much of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are under the control of pro-Russian separatists and have been since 2014.

“The Russian Federation has started a war in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and is now beginning to tell nonsense that we will allegedly reclaim the Donetsk and Luhansk regions militarily. I would like to emphasize once again that we cannot do that because we are responsible for the civilian population,” Danilov said.

“I just do not understand why the Russians need that ‘trouble’ called our country? Believe me, we will not give anything to anyone,” he said. “They are aware of the position of our citizens that we will fight for our [land.] … We have never attacked anyone in the history of our country. But we will not give ours to anyone.”

Danilov said the city of Kharkiv will be protected in case of an invasion.

Speaking on the evacuation of government institutions, Danilov said. “To date, there are no reasons to take out or evacuate documents. If there are such reasons, the relevant institutions will immediately work in the appropriate direction.”

“Now no one is moving anywhere, because we do not see any reasons for it today,” he added.

US oil prices briefly climbed above $94 a barrel on Friday for the first time since September 2014 as concerns mount about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Crude jumped as much as 5.3% to a fresh seven-year high of $94.66 a barrel. 

Oil prices eased off their highs, however, as US national security adviser Jake Sullivan briefed reporters. Although Sullivan said an invasion could begin at “any time,” even during the Olympics, he added that the United States does not believe Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decision on whether to invade. 

In recent trading, oil was up 3.5% to $93 a barrel. Brent crude, the world benchmark, gained 3.2% to $94.20. US stocks similarly pared their losses during Sullivan’s briefing.

Analysts have warned that a conflict in Ukraine could threaten energy supplies, including through potential sanctions. Russia is the world’s No. 2 producer of both oil and natural gas.

Oil could “easily” hit $120 a barrel if there are “any disruptions” to oil flows from Russia, JPMorgan analysts said earlier this week. A halving of Russian oil exports would likely send oil to $150 a barrel, JPMorgan said. The record high for Brent crude was set in July 2008 when it hit $147.50 a barrel.

Higher oil prices will only drive up prices at the pump and contribute to historic inflation in the United States.

The national average for regular gas stands at a seven-year high of $3.48 a gallon, up from $3.30 a month ago, according to AAA.

Following a virtual meeting with US President Biden and key allies, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said “the risk of conflict in Europe is real” in a statement.

Biden organized a call on the situation between Russia and Ukraine Friday morning with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, NATO and EU leaders.

In a statement by the European Commission, the group underscored its support for Ukraine and its final adoption of an emergency financial assistance package of 1.2 billion euros. European Union chief Ursula Von der Leyen indicated that sanctions against Russia would concern the financial and energy sectors, as well as exports of high-tech products, according to the statement.

Von der Leyen also emphasized “the need to continue fighting Russian disinformation through effective strategic communication efforts.”

Stoltenberg has invited Russia and all other members of the NATO-Russia Council to further meetings to discuss European security, according to the NATO statement.

The conference comes as multiple embassies worldwide, including those of Japan, Norway, South Korea, Latvia and the United Kingdom, advise their citizens to evacuate Ukraine.