Joe Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Sunday the US national security council would meet to review the latest intelligence on Ukraine and “check plans”.
Related: Russian troops will remain indefinitely, says Belarus, as fears rise of Ukraine invasion
Blinken toured the TV political shows to press home the Biden administration’s message that the US remains convinced that Russia is poised to invade Ukraine.
“As President Biden said, everything we are seeing tells us that the decision we believe President Putin has made to invade is moving forward,” he told CBS’s Face the Nation.
Pressed to give details of why the US continues to believe an invasion is imminent despite repeated Russian denials, Blinken pointed to what he called “provocations” and “false flag operations” that could be used by Putin to justify overrunning its neighbour.
Russian-backed separatists have increased shelling in east Ukraine in the past few days, and Blinken said that could be used as a pretext.
“Now we have the news just this morning that the ‘exercises’ Russia was engaged with in Belarus, with 30,000 forces, which were supposed to end this weekend will now continue because of tensions in eastern Ukraine – tensions created by Russia.”
Blinken’s interviews came amid a swirl of diplomatic activity that offered little clarity about what lies ahead. As the top US diplomat was warning that Russia was moving ahead with invasion plans, Vladimir Putin and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, were agreeing to push for a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
Amid a swirl of claim and counter-claim, CBS reported that according to US intelligence actual orders had been given to Russian troops amassed close to the Ukraine border to proceed with an invasion.
“Commanders on the ground are making specific plans for how they would manoeuvre in their sector of the battlefield,” CBS reported.
Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, also struck a grim note, telling ABC’s This Week that the extent and type of military capability built up by Russia along the border region could support a swift attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
“I don’t believe this is a bluff,” he said. “[Putin] has assembled the right kinds of things you would need to conduct a successful invasion.”
The Texas senator Ted Cruz spoke for Republican critics of Joe Biden’s foreign policy, telling Fox News Sunday the withdrawal from Afghanistan last year showed US weakness and gave Russia a green light to invade its neighbour.
“Joe Biden becoming president is the best thing that ever happened, strategically, for Vladimir Putin,” Cruz said.
Blinken had just returned from Munich, where he accompanied Kamala Harris to a security conference. He is scheduled to meet the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, in Europe next week, but has stipulated that the encounter will be cancelled if an invasion occurs.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was sharply critical of allied leaders for waiting to impose sanctions until after any bombardment had begun. He accused world leaders of “appeasement”.
“You’re telling me that it’s 100% that the war will start in a couple of days. Then what are you waiting for?” Zelenskiy said.
Asked by CBS to respond to the criticism, Blinken said: “We have put together in great detail the massive consequences that will befall Russia if it engages in this aggression.
“The purpose of that is to deter the aggression, and once you trigger the sanctions you lose the deterrence.”
Russian officials continued to insist that there were no plans to invade, even though more than 150,000 troops are in place around Ukraine. Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to Washington, told CBS the massive operation was limited to “sovereign Russian territory” – glossing over the sizable forces and ongoing drills in Belarus.
Related: Putin and Macron agree to try to secure ceasefire in eastern Ukraine
“We don’t threaten anyone,” Antonov said. “We have our legitimate right to have our troops where we want on Russian territory.”
The ambassador added that the goal was to achieve “legally binding guarantees for Russian security” and to stop Nato expansion on its borders.
“Nato is not a peace-loving NGO,” he said. “It’s a political-military machinery or block. We would like the United States to withdraw their troops and weaponry from those states because it’s our life, our guarantees for security for our people.”
The Nato general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, told CBS there were no immediate plans for Ukraine to join the alliance and stressed that any such decision would fall to the Ukrainian people.
But he said that Nato had increased its collective defense presence towards the east in recent years and added: “We are ready to further re-enforce that.”
