Lord, we pray that you would protect our Allies. We pray that any scheme of the enemy would be destroyed in the name of Jesus. Give our diplomatic, intelligence, and military leaders wisdom and insight.

Russia could be about to invade Ukraine, the US has warned its European allies, as Vladimir Putin builds up his forces on the border while NATO and the EU deal with the migrant crisis between Belarus and Poland.

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American intelligence sources have briefed their European counterparts of a possible Kremlin military operation in Ukraine’s east to annex territory similar to the 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

The US has refused to share exactly what intel it has of an imminent attack, but the warning comes after satelite images revealed a build-up of tens of thousands of Russian troops, tanks and artillery pieces close to the border.

Ukraine – which has been fighting a proxy-war against Russian-backed separatists in its eastern regions for years – has moved 8,500 more troops to the border in response.

Meanwhile, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have also been warning of the risk of conflict between Belarus – a close ally of Moscow – and Poland amid a migrant crisis on their shared border.

The EU accuses Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko of forcing migrants to make illegal crossings into Poland in a cynical attempt to destabilise the bloc using vulnerable people as his weapon.

In response, Poland has moved 15,000 troops to the region – a move that has ‘concerned’ both Lukashenko and Putin. Russia has taken to flying nuclear-capable bombers over Belarus as a show of rival strength.

On Thursday, Lukashenko himself warned of the risk of a conflict and accused armed groups in the Donbas region of Ukraine of trying to ship weapons to the migrants on the Polish border in order to spark fighting.

‘They are Kurds, and the Kurds are militant,’ he said according to Polish newspaper Wyborcza. ‘When Poles beat them, cut them, torment them, etc., they become desperate. One rifle, one gun, and armed conflict is ready.’

Lukashenko has also threatened to cut off natural gas supplies running from Russia and through his country into Europe – though that threat was angrily slapped down by Moscow today. . . .

Russia’s Yamal-Europe pipeline runs through Belarus and into Poland, representing about 20 per cent of the country’s total gas-carrying capacity into Europe.

The continent relies on natural gas for around a quarter of its energy needs, more than half of which is piped in from Russia – which sits on top of the world’s largest gas reserves.

Just weeks ago, European leaders were trying to negotiate with Russia to increase supplies as stockpiles of gas ran low due to surging demand as economies reopen post-Covid.

The EU accused Putin of throttling the flow of gas as a political bargaining tool to try and get a new gas pipeline – the multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 2 – opened. He denied the allegations.

Concerns about Russian troops on Ukraine’s border have been ongoing since at least April this year, when Putin moved around 100,000 soldiers, tanks and artillery pieces to the region without warning.

He later said the exercise was to test ‘military readiness’ and pulled some of the units back, but NATO warned that many of them had remained at the front even after the ‘exercise’ was over. . . .

More troop and tank movements spotted via satellite in recent weeks spooked Washington even further, and prompted this week’s warning to European leaders about a confrontation.

CIA Director Bill Burns even flew  to Moscow and have a rare one-on-one with President Vladimir Putin.

There he shared the US’s ‘serious’ concerns over the military buildup, sources told CNN. . . .

The report comes as fighting between Russian-backed groups and Ukrainian forces heats up. It began in 2014 after Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula following a revolution that overthrew Ukraine’s former president who was widely seen as another mouthpiece of Putin’s.

What are your thoughts that there could be a possible Russian Invasion? Let us know your thoughts and prayers in the comments below!

(Excerpt from Dailymail. Article written by Chris Pleasance. Photo by IStock)

IFA has prayed with Intercessors of Ukraine. Find the videos on our YouTube channel.