WASHINGTON
\nUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the \u201cimminent\u201d threat of Russian military action in Ukraine justifies evacuating the US embassy in Kyiv.
\nHis words came after Ukraine\u2019s president urged calm, saying the biggest enemy was panic.
\nMore than a dozen countries have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine.
\nMoscow, with more than 100,000 troops near the border, has denied it plans to invade.
\nThe Kremlin\u2019s top foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov has dismissed US warnings of an attack, saying \u201chysteria has reached its peak\u201d.
\nSaturday saw further attempts to de-escalate tensions in the region. In a phone call, President Joe Biden warned Russian leader Vladimir Putin of \u201cswift and severe costs\u201d if Russia sends in troops.
\nUK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, meanwhile, compared recent Western diplomatic efforts to stop an invasion to the appeasement of Nazi Germany.
\nMr Wallace told the Sunday Times newspaper \u201cthere\u2019s a whiff of Munich in the air\u201d – a reference to an agreement with Hitler that failed to prevent World War Two.
\nMr Wallace also said that an attack remained highly likely and it could come \u201cat any time\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the \u201cimminent\u201d threat of Russian military action in Ukraine justifies evacuating the US embassy in Kyiv. His words came after Ukraine\u2019s president urged calm, saying the biggest enemy was panic. More than a dozen countries have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine. Moscow, with more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-244302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n