US Intelligence Used to Convince EU of Russia's Alleged Plans to Invade Ukraine - Reports

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th December, 2021) The United States actively shared certain intelligence in order to convince the EU and NATO of Moscow's alleged plans to prepare an invasion of Ukraine, The Financial Times reports.

Officials told the newspaper on Sunday that the "unprecedented sharing" of US intelligence reports depicting Russian military deployments along the border helped convince previously skeptical European countries, including Germany, that Russia could "soon order its troops into Ukraine."

"Many allies were not convinced that serious things were happening," one official told The Financial Times. "We were surprised about this (intelligence) gap - how and why the US were seeing things that we were not seeing."

European defense and security officials told the newspaper that US President Joe Biden now has the backing of NATO and the EU for possible retaliatory measures against Russia. Biden plans to warn Russian President Vladimir Putin, during the Tuesday talks, against any aggressive action with respect to Ukraine.

Over the past several weeks, Ukraine and some Western countries have expressed concern about the alleged increase in what they characterize as "aggressive actions" by Russia along the border.

Russia has repeatedly refuted such allegations with President Putin calling such statements "alarmist." Moscow also stated that it does not threaten any country and is not going to launch an attack against any nation.

Biden plans to discuss the issue of Ukraine, as well as other topics, during the upcoming video call with Putin on Tuesday, December 7.

The Russian embassy in Washington said on Saturday in response to media speculations about Moscow's alleged plans to prepare an invasion of Ukraine that Russia has the right to move its own troops within its territory.

The embassy emphasized that Washington needs to work on making Kiev adhere to the Minsk agreements.

On November 23, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated that Russia does not have any aggressive plans with regard to Ukraine. The Kremlin has also expressed concerns about Kiev having aggregated almost half of all its armed forces on the contact line with the Donbas region in the east of the country.