US Envoy to UN Claims Russia Has Already ‘Invaded Parts of Eastern Europe’

US officials and media have spent months claiming that Russia is getting ready to attack Ukraine, even setting a hard date of 16 February and then pushing it forward to 20 February after nothing happened. Moscow has dismissed the invasion claims as absurd drivel and accused NATO of fomenting panic to justify its eastward expansion.

The threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is serious, and the absence of panic among ordinary Ukrainians speaking to US media is not an indication that an attack isn’t coming, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield has said.

“I don’t know that there’s a disconnect, Erin. I think we’re all seeing the same things, and how it’s being interpreted may be different from others. But this is a Russian way of operating,” Thomas-Greenfield said, speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett, when asked about the apparent “disconnect” between President Biden’s invasion danger claims, and sentiments from Ukrainians on the ground.

“They have put these troops on the border. We saw them do this when they invaded Crimea. We’ve seen them do it when they’ve invaded other parts of Eastern Europe. So we’re making every plan and making sure we share very transparently with the world what we are seeing,” the ambassador added.

Thomas-Greenfield did not elaborate on how the March 2014 Crimea-wide referendum on rejoining Russia that was held following the February 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev constituted a Russian “invasion.” She also didn’t specify and was not pressed by her interviewer on what “other parts of Eastern Europe” Russia had managed to invade, apparently without attracting the attention and ire of the international community.

Commenting on the diplomat’s remarks on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov joked that they served as “an example of refined diplomacy.”

The envoy’s remarks also sparked an endless stream of sarcastic commentary on Russian news sites and social media. “I live in the Western Urals – the most eastern part of Europe, and can confirm, Russia is here,” one user joked. “It’s all true. Russia has already invaded the regions of Rostov and Voronezh,” another quipped, recalling British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s geography gaffe during her talks in Moscow earlier this month, when she accidentally refused to recognize that the two regions are in fact part of Russia. “This US permanent representative needs to urgently convene a meeting of the UN to issue a statement demanding that Russia stop its aggression against Rostov, Voronezh, and just in case, Volgograd, Vologda, Kaliningrad and Novgorod, too,” the user added. “The only place Russia has invaded and annexed is your brain,” another commentator wrote.

Politico, one of the several US outlets which claimed last week, citing Biden administration officials, that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was almost certain to begin on 16 February, has since ‘corrected’ its claims, now saying that “the time frame to really keep an eye on is what happens shortly after February 20.”

The comical media speculation about when Russia’s aggression would start sparked a series of sarcastic remarks from Russian officials this week, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova joking that she would like to ask Bloomberg, the New York Times and The Sun to “publish the schedule for our upcoming invasions for the year” so she could plan her vacation accordingly. Meanwhile, a Reuters livestream from Kiev on the day the invasion was supposed to commence was interrupted not by bombs or missiles, but by a drone carrying a “garage for sale” sign.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden told reporters there was “every indication” that Russia was still ready to invade Ukraine, and claimed that Moscow was preparing a false flag “to have an excuse to go in.”

“My sense is it will happen within the next few days,” Biden said.

The Kremlin blasted Biden over the remarks, saying they only serve to artificially stoke tensions.