The newsy part here isn’t that an invasion is coming, which has been clear for days, but the apparent scope. NATO had been hoping that Russia would confine itself to seizing territory in the east, which separatists supported by Russian have claimed as their own. To hear Biden tell it this afternoon, though, this will be a war of conquest that’ll stretch all the way to the capital and will aim to decapitate Zelensky’s government.

BIDEN: “We have reason to believe that Russian forces are planning and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week—coming days.”

“We believe that they will target Ukraine’s capital Kyiv…”pic.twitter.com/17LFyMb8Te

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 18, 2022

The decision has been made, he stressed to reporters after his remarks:

Q: "Do you have any indication about whether President Putin has made a decision on whether to invade?"

President Biden: "As of this moment I'm convinced he's made the decision. We have reason to believe that." pic.twitter.com/Z3e8PU9Dd9

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 18, 2022

Question: You are convinced that President Putin is going to invade?
Biden: Yes pic.twitter.com/BMUfD6llbv

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 18, 2022

The White House has been playing this game with Moscow for weeks, revealing what the intelligence shows in hopes that doing so will bait Putin into changing his plans. At this point, that seems unlikely:

As a further indication that the Russians continue preparations for a potential invasion, a U.S. defense official said an estimated 40% to 50% of the ground forces deployed in the vicinity of the Ukrainian border have moved into attack positions nearer the border. That shift has been under way for about a week, other officials have said, and does not necessarily mean Putin has decided to begin an invasion. The defense official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal U.S. military assessments.

The official also said the number of Russian ground units known as battalion tactical groups deployed in the border area had grown to between 120 and 125, up from 83 two weeks ago. Each battalion tactical group has between 750 and 1,000 soldiers.

A “large helicopter deployment” in Belarus is also being reported this afternoon:

New @Maxar photo shows newly arrived Russian helicopter unit & battle group w/ tanks at Millerovo airfield 16 kilometers from Ukraine border pic.twitter.com/swgcj7I7kC

— Mary Walsh (@CBSWalsh) February 18, 2022

Meanwhile, social media is filled with reports of shenanigans happening inside Ukraine that are obviously designed to justify a Russian invasion. First there was the supposed car-bombing of a separatist leader by Ukrainian forces:

The head of the Donetsk separatist police (or "people's militia") says it was his car, per Interfax.

This would suggest that the rebels and Russia will claim Ukraine tried to assassinate him. https://t.co/b2xt8ZAJxd

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 18, 2022

Then reports began circulating on Russian state media that an attempted attack on a chlorine gas facility by the Ukrainians had been foiled, a claim which Ukrainian intelligence predicted weeks ago would eventually be made as a pretext to invade. Then came a mysterious explosion at a gas pipeline, which Russian media is aggressively promoting and blaming on Ukraine:

This is bad. All Russian media is reporting that there was an explosion to a gas pipeline in Luhansk. The fact that it is breaking across all Russian media is not a good sign pic.twitter.com/hNg6SqDouj

— Olga Lautman 🇺🇦 (@OlgaNYC1211) February 18, 2022

Separatists called for a full evacuation of women and children from eastern Ukraine this afternoon, alleging preposterously that the Ukrainian military was about to launch a massive attack. As Biden noted in his comments this afternoon, it’s ludicrous to believe the Ukrainians would hand Putin a casus belli by attacking first when there are more than 150,000 Russian troops on the border primed to move in. These are false flag ops designed to give the Russian press a way to justify the coming invasion to skeptical Russian citizens. It’s worked for Putin before. Why wouldn’t he do it again?

Here’s a fun tweet. Remember that the U.S. claimed last week that the date for invasion had been set for February 16. That day came and went without an attack, leading Russian apologists to scoff at another embarrassing failure by American intelligence. But:

According to metadata, today‘s video of separatist leader of LNR on ongoing escalation was recorded two days ago, on 16th of February. Which corroborates initial intelligence assessment regarding 16.02 as a day for Russian attack on #Ukraine. Its all fake from A to Z pic.twitter.com/xcVnhJWqfM

— Sergiy Koshman (@Koshman) February 18, 2022

One Russian politician claimed today that Putin would have an important announcement to make about the Donbas, a disputed territory, on February 20. Circle the date on your calendars.

What’s coming will be big, sources are whispering to the WSJ. This won’t be a “limited incursion” a la annexing Crimea:

U.S. officials said Friday an attack could involve a broad combination of jet fighters, tanks, ballistic missiles and cyberattacks, with the ultimate intention of rendering the country’s leadership powerless…

Russia has now amassed between 169,000 and 190,000 military personnel near Ukraine and in Crimea, up from a force of 100,000 on Jan. 30, Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said in prepared remarks to a security conference on Friday.

“This is the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the second world war,” said Mr. Carpenter, who noted that the U.S. estimate includes Russian troops, Russian internal-security units and Russian-led forces in Donbas…

The White House on Friday blamed Russia’s intelligence service, the GRU, for recent malicious cyber activity that knocked some Ukrainian financial and government websites offline.

Another report floating around claims that “Russia has drafted lists of Ukrainian political figures and other prominent individuals to be targeted for either arrest or assassination in the event of a Russian assault on Ukraine.” And maybe not just in Ukraine: Supposedly, the Kremlin may also “target” activists and other dissidents living abroad in exile, although it’s unclear what that targeting would mean. Maybe it means cyberwarfare, maybe it means a speck of polonium surreptitiously placed in their tea.

I’ve been quietly skeptical that Russia invading Ukraine might spiral into larger conflict, but given the firepower they’re allegedly bringing to bear and their interest in punishing enemies outside Ukraine’s borders, maybe it’s time to revisit that.

Here’s a little more from Biden this afternoon, doing what he can to boost morale.

President Biden: "Despite Russia’s efforts to divide us at home and abroad, I can affirm that has not happened."

Full video here: https://t.co/FNIu5NRqN0 pic.twitter.com/aYBaUiqJK4

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 18, 2022