France Urges Its Citizens to Leave Ukraine

France has urged their nationals to leave Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk, as soon as possible, as the situation flared up.

Earlier on Saturday, Germany's foreign ministry called on its nationals to leave Ukraine.

It is worth mentioing that, the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, on Saturday warned that Russian troops on the border of Ukraine "began to spread" and "preparing to attack."

This came in media statements made by Austin during a visit to Lithuania.

The US minister pointed out that Russian soldiers "are moving towards appropriate sites so they can carry out an attack."

Kamala Harris, US Vice President warned on Saturday that the US, its allies and partners, will impose significant financial penalties against Russia if it invades Ukraine.

"Let me be clear, I can say with absolute certainty if Russia further invades Ukraine the United States, together with our Allies and partners, will impose significant and unprecedented economic costs," Harris said.

It is worth mentioning that, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Alexei Danilov, stated that Kyiv sees no evidence that Russia is preparing for a “large-scale attack” on Ukrainian territory.

“If we are talking about a large-scale operation against our state, we do not see anything like this,” Danilov said in an interview with Ukraine’s “1+1” channel.

He added that Ukraine had detected “provocations from the Russian side” in the Donbas region.

Danilov added that the Ukrainian side should “maintain restraint”, and that the Ukrainian army was fully prepared for this.

Earlier, the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said that the United States has not seen any sign of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine’s borders and that Moscow has been moving critical units closer to the area.

Russia said more of its forces surrounding Ukraine were withdrawing on Wednesday, but NATO said the troop buildup was continuing, questioning Moscow’s stated willingness to negotiate a solution to the crisis.

“There’s what Russia says and then there’s what Russia does. And we haven’t seen any pullback of its forces,” Blinken told MSNBC. “We continue to see critical units moving toward the border, not away from the border.”