US embassy tells Americans: have an evacuation plan from Russia

Shafaq News/ The US embassy in Russia cautioned Americans on Sunday to have evacuation plans, citing the threat of attacks in Moscow and along the Russian border with Ukraine, drawing a rebuke from Russian foreign ministry.

"There have been threats of attacks against shopping centres, railway and metro stations, and other public gathering places in major urban areas, including Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as in areas of heightened tension along the Russian border with Ukraine," the embassy said.

"Review your personal security plans," the embassy said. "Have evacuation plans that do not rely on US government assistance."

Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, questioned if the United States had passed on the information about possible attacks to Russia.

"And if not, how is one to understand all of this?" Zakharova said.

Earlier today, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Russia’s “playbook” for an invasion of Ukraine is moving forward, though he said there still is a chance for diplomacy to avert a war.

“As we’ve described it, everything leading up to the actual invasion appears to be taking place,” Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Blinken told CNN’s Dana Bash that President Joe Biden is willing to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin “at any time, in any format” if it will help prevent a war, saying the Biden administration will continue to take whatever steps it can to try to convince Moscow not to invade Ukraine.

“We believe President Putin has made the decision, but until the tanks are actually rolling, and the planes are flying, we will use every opportunity and every minute we have to see if diplomacy can still dissuade President Putin from carrying this forward,” Blinken said.

Ukraine’s defense ministry reported more than 100 ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine on Saturday and said that shelling continued into Sunday, while Russian troops remain in Belarus to continue military exercises that were supposed to have concluded.

Blinken said he was concerned that the extension of the exercises was another sign that Russia was setting the stage to invade.

“Now they’re justifying the continuation of ‘exercises’ that they said would end now, the continuation indefinitely of those quote-unquote exercises on the situation in eastern Ukraine — a situation that they created by continuing to ramp up tensions,” Blinken said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Germany on Saturday, where he met with Vice President Kamala Harris at the Munich Security Conference. Zelensky said that he was urging the US and Europe not to wait to put in place sanctions against Russia, arguing that they wouldn’t help Ukraine if they only were invoked after an invasion had already begun.

Blinken said on Sunday that the US did not want to unveil the sanctions ahead of time because that would “allow Russia to try and plan against them.”

“The purpose of the sanctions in the first instance is to try to deter Russia from going to war,” he said. “As soon as you trigger them, that deterrent is gone and until the last minute, as long as we can try to bring a deterrent effect to this, we’re going to try to do that.”