Biden cancels plan to leave DC, speaks with Macron as Ukraine tensions persist

Plans change an hour after White House announces travel

President Joe Biden exits Marine One on the White House lawn (Getty Images)

President Joe Biden cancelled his plans to travel to Wilmington, Delaware where he was to spend the President’s Day holiday overnight on Sunday as tensions with Moscow appeared to be at their highest level so far.

The announcement of the change of the president’s plans came just about an hour and a half after the travel plans were first made public in an advisory given to White House pool reporters.

Mr Biden also spoke with French President Emanuel Macron, who had just spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, CNN reported. The president also held a meeting with his National Security Council regarding Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s border.

Mr Biden’s words come as his administration has insisted that Mr Putin has made a decision about whether to invade Ukraine. Russia has already amassed troops and military equipment on Ukraine’s border. Mr Biden said on Friday that he is “convinced” that Mr Putin will launch an invasion.

“We are calling out Russia’s plans loudly and repeatedly – not because we want conflict, but because we're doing everything in our power to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine,” he said.

Vice President Kamala Harris was in Munich and echoed the sentiment.

“As the president has said, we believe that Putin has made his decision. Period,” she told reporters.

Mr Biden’s change in travel plans came as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin laid out a grim scenario for a Russian invasion of Ukraine during an interview with ABC News.

Speaking with the organisation’s chief global affairs correspondent, Martha Raddatz, on Sunday, Mr Austin explained that an attack on Kievwas “highly likely” to occur should the Russian military go ahead with an attack on eastern Ukraine.

“Would we see [Russian] tanks rolling in to Kiev?” Ms Raddatz asked the defence chief.

“You could see that. I mean, that’s highly likely. You could see that. You could see a significant amount of combat power move down to take Kiev,” responded Mr Austin.

Also speaking on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS’s Face the Nation that the United States believes Russia is “moving forward” with plans to invade Ukraine.

The statement comes as Russia has amassed 150,000 troops, warplanes and equipment on Ukraine’s three sides.

“We’ve seen that with provocations created by the Russians or separatist forces over the weekend, false flag operations, now the news just this morning that the ‘exercises’ Russia was engaged in in Belarus with 30,000 Russian forces that was supposed to end this weekend will now continue because of tensions in eastern Ukraine, tensions created by Russia and the separatist forces it backs there,” he said.