Foreign Minister Yair Lapid warned on Sunday that Israel may not be able to provide aid to those stranded in Ukraine should hostilities break out this week, as many expect.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
"There is a very large Jewish presence there and we are in touch with them through the embassy," Lapid said at a briefing. "There will be 31 flights to Israel in the coming week and probably even more. There is a short window of opportunity to get the Israelis out before things get complicated," he stressed, noting that the government was "duty-bound to help Israelis and Jews everywhere."
The United States said on Sunday that Russia could invade Ukraine "any day now" and might create a surprise pretext for an attack, as the German chancellor prepared for talks this week with President Vladimir Putin to try to ease the crisis.
Washington has said the door for diplomacy remained open but it has also repeatedly said Russia's military, which has more than 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, was poised to act.
Moscow denies any such plans and has called comments "hysteria", but no breakthrough that could ease the crisis has yet emerged from high-level talks between top Russian and Western officials in recent days.
#EXCLUSIVE: 'If @yairlapid decides to visit Ukraine, this is the right time to pay the visit,' @EmineDzheppar , Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, tells i24NEWS' @owenalterman pic.twitter.com/KCJuW32NUM
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) February 13, 2022
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for Russia to de-escalate on the eve of his trip that takes him to Kyiv on Monday and Moscow on Tuesday. A German official said Berlin did not expect "concrete results" but said diplomacy was important.
Scholz warned of sanctions if Moscow did invade.
"We cannot perfectly predict the day, but we have now been saying for some time that we are in the window, and an invasion could begin – a major military action could begin – by Russia in Ukraine any day now," White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN.
Sullivan said Washington would continue sharing intelligence with the world to deny Moscow the ability to stage a surprise "false flag" operation that could be a pretext for an attack.
US officials said they could not confirm reports that US intelligence indicated Russia planned to invade on Wednesday.US President Joe Biden, who is due to speak to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday, told Putin in a call https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-putin-speak-ukraine-warnings-mount-2022-02-12 on Saturday the West would respond decisively to any invasion and such an attack would harm and isolate Moscow.
A senior US administration official said Biden's call was substantive but that there was no fundamental change. The Kremlin said Putin told Biden that Washington had failed to take Russia's main concerns into account and it had received no "substantial answer" on key elements of its security demands.
Putin wants guarantees from the United States and NATO that include blocking Ukraine's entry into NATO, refraining from missile deployments near Russia's borders and scaling back NATO's military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels.
Washington regards many of the proposals as non-starters but has pushed the Kremlin to discuss them jointly with Washington and its European allies.
"The diplomatic path remains open. The way for Moscow to show that it wants to pursue that path is simple. It should de-escalate, rather than escalate," US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said after he held talks on Saturday with Asian allies.
Washington ordered most of its embassy staff on Saturday to leave Ukraine immediately. Its European allies and others have also been scaling back or evacuating staff from their Kyiv missions and have urged citizens to leave or avoid travel to Ukraine.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
