The Sun continues to insist that a Russian invasion of Ukraine will take place within hours, citing U.S. intelligence.

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Mark Ames: Days after famously spreading disinformation about Putin invading Ukraine last weekend, the Atlantic Council's star deputy director is hired by the U.S. State Department to discuss...wait for it..."Russian disinformation!"

Slapstick incompetence on endless loop play.

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A 15-minute video worth watching.

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Zelensky ally: U.S. media is worse than Russian propaganda.

David Arakhamia, a close ally of President Zelensky and the head of his Servant of the People party in parliament says American mainstream media outlets are doing more damage to Ukraine than Russian state propaganda.

“Blatant fakes on CNN, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal … we need to investigate this,” he said, estimating that the media-generated “hysteria” about an imminent Russian invasion is now costing the country $2-3 billion a month.

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❗️U.S., NATO see no signs of Russia pulling back troops from Ukraine border.

"There's what Russia says, and then there's what Russia does. And we haven't seen any pullback of its forces," said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an interview on MSNBC.

"We continue to see critical units moving toward the border, not away from the border," Blinken added.

In a rare statement, Britain's defense intelligence chief said: “We have not seen evidence that Russia has withdrawn forces from Ukraine’s borders. Contrary to their claims, Russia continues to build up military capabilities near Ukraine."

Additionally, satellite images taken over the past two days appear to show new road construction and a tactical bridge being built across a key river in Belarus less than four miles from the Ukrainian border.

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Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore speaks out against U.S. media war fever.

“So the president and people of Ukraine don’t think Russia is going to launch a big invasion. But we’re trying to convince them it’s going to happen. Why? Why is our media all ga-ga for war again? Are we watching Wag the Dog? Stop!,” — Moore wrote on Twitter.

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❗️Sounds of artillery fire are reported as being heard in the center of Donetsk.

The situation on the line of contact in Donbas is escalating, with the breakaway republics reporting Ukrainian shelling from early morning.

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❗️Kremlin: We are seeing the reports out of Donbas, it is clear that the situation there is escalating.

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The current situation in the center of Donetsk appears calm, with no gun or mortar fire heard, according to a RIA Novosti correspondent.

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Russia’s written reply to the U.S. and NATO January responses regarding Moscow’s December security proposals will be delivered today and is expected to be published.

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Politico has set a new probable Russian invasion date to February 20, citing experts.

Previously, Politico reported that Russia could attack Ukraine on February 16.

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❗️Biden tells ABC News that he thinks Russia will invade Ukraine “within the next several days.”

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❗️Russia expels Deputy Chief of U.S. Mission in Moscow Bart Gorman.

“Gorman was the second most senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow after the ambassador, and a key member of the embassy’s senior leadership,” embassy spokesperson Jason Rebholz told RIA Novosti. 

Washington considers Gorman’s expulsion from Russia an “escalatory step” and is weighing a response, Rebholz added. 

It’s not yet clear what prompted the expulsion, however, Russia’s deputy ambassador in Washington had also recently returned to Moscow.

At the end of January, a group of Russian diplomats were forced to leave the U.S. after their terms were cut short by the State Department.

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❗️Head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic announces mass evacuation of local civilians into southern Russia, and accuses Ukraine of planning an imminent offensive into the breakaway Donbas region.

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❗️Head of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic follows his neighbor and announces evacuation of civilians, citing intelligence of an imminent Ukrainian offensive.

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❗️The US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter, says that Russia “probably has massed between 169,000-190,000 personnel in and near Ukraine” up from “about 100,000 on January 30.”

Carpenter alleges in the same speech given in Vienna on February 18 that Russia is engaged in efforts to “fabricate supposed Ukrainian provocations and shape a public narrative that would justify a Russian invasion”, calling reports on an escalation from the Ukrainian side a “false narrative”.

Carpenter further called President Putin’s accusation of genocide being carried out in Eastern Ukraine a “false claim” and an instrumentalization, echoing the US Secretary of State’s remarks at the United Nations yesterday.

The Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics continue to register an uptick in firing and shelling from the Ukrainian side of the contact line, with both sides trading accusations of escalating the fighting.

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❗️An explosion was reported in the center of Donetsk, allegedly a car bomb near the main administration building.

Earlier in the evening sirens could be heard ringing throughout the city.

Putin has instructed his minister of emergency situations to immediately fly to the Rostov region to organize the reception of Donbas refugees.

The White House announced that President Biden will speak on the Russia-Ukraine situation at 21:00 GMT.

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Ex-U.S. Ambassador to USSR: Ukraine Crisis Stems Directly from Post-Cold War Push to Expand NATO

Jack Matlock, one of the last U.S. ambassadors to the Soviet Union prior to the collapse of the USSR, says the U.S.-led expansion of NATO following the end of the Cold War helped lay the groundwork for the current standoff over Ukraine. He argues continued escalation could stoke another nuclear arms race, and lays out some of the parallels with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

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❗️The car that exploded near the Government administration building in Donetsk at approximately 19:00 was a UAZ belonging to Denis Sinenkov, head of the People's Militia of the DPR, reports Interfax. Sinenkov himself was not injured.

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Germany, USA, UK, and France promised NATO would not expand eastward, document reveals

DER SPIEGEL has reported on a document which supports the claims of Vladimir Putin and previous Russian Presidents that the West promised NATO would not expand to the east following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.

According to the document, dated 6 March 1991, representatives from Germany, USA, UK, and France agreed that the prospect of Eastern European states joining NATO was “unacceptable”.

The US representative Raymond Seitz is purported to have said that the US made it clear vis-à-vis the Soviet Union that NATO would not take advantage of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe, adding that the US-led bloc should neither formally nor informally stretch itself eastward.

No formal agreement bound by international law was ever signed, though the understanding reached through 2+4 and other discussions is said to have been “in good faith”.

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❗️A massive explosion of what’s believed to be a gas pipeline is being reported out of Lugansk.

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