American intelligence says that Russia will invade Ukraine as Western allies scramble to find a diplomatic solution

The United States has intelligence that Russian commanders received orders to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine, CBS News reported.

CBS News host, Margaret Brennan said, “The president was very clear that he is convinced by U.S. intelligence that this invasion will happen, that President Putin [has] decided to do it. How was he that certain?”

CBS News correspondent David Martin responded by saying, “The intelligence says that Russian troops have actually received orders now, to proceed with the invasion. So, not only are they moving up closer and closer to the border into these attack positions, but the commanders on the ground are making specific plans for how they would maneuver in their sector of the battlefield.”

Martin said that the Russian forces are doing “everything that American commanders would do once they got the order to proceed.”

On Friday, President Joe Biden told reporters that he was “convinced” Russian leadership had decided to invade Ukraine and that he expected Russian forces to invade Ukraine in the “coming days.”

Previously, Ukrainian leadership said that Russia was working to destabilize Ukraine from within to create circumstances that would justify an invasion.

Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s top national security adviser, said that a military invasion would be too costly for Russia given the size of Ukraine’s military and the Ukrainian people’s will to fight.

Danilov also speculated that West continuing to pressure Russia would cause Russian leadership to shy away from conventional means of warfare and pursue a series of intense cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, and economic pressure.

However, as tension in the region continues to escalate, the Russian military announced that it would be conducting military drills involving the country’s strategic nuclear forces.

A spokesman for the Kremlin said that Vladimir Putin would watch the drills from the Defense Ministry’s situation room and supervise the practice missile launches in person.

Moscow continues to deny that it has any plans to invade Ukraine and demands that the United States and NATO allies withdraw their military forces from territories near Russia and make legally binding commitments that Ukraine will not join NATO. Leadership in Washington and Brussels refuse to meet these demands.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, expressed that he was interested in meeting with Putin so that they could come to a diplomatic consensus that would end the ongoing conflict.

On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris met with European leaders in Munich, Germany, to discuss the conflict and strategize with Western leaders on how they might deter a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Several international airlines have stopped providing service to the Ukraine at this time.