The United States now believes a Russian invasion of Ukraine “could happen at any time,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday, in what would be the biggest military operation in Europe since World War II.

“We believe that the Russians have put in place the capabilities to mount a significant military operation into Ukraine, and we have been working hard to prepare a response,” Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show.

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The US and its allies will deliver a “swift, severe and united response” if Russia invades Ukraine, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned on Sunday amid rising tensions.

The top US diplomat’s comments came as Russia continued its military build-up on the Ukraine border and Britain said it had exposed evidence of a plot by Vladimir Putin to install a pro-Moscow government in Kyiv.

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“We have found 23 dead” in a rural area of the northeastern Arauca department, deputy defense minister Jairo Garcia said.

Duque blamed his counterpart Nicolas Maduro for harboring Colombian rebels on the Venezuelan side of the countries’ 2,200-kilometer (1,400 mile) border.

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U.S. intelligence is warning of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine involving as many as 175,000 troops as soon as January, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News following a Friday report in The Washington Post about the scale of a possible offensive.

The plans involve extensive movement of 100 battalion tactical groups with an estimated 175,000 personnel, along with armor, artillery and equipment, according to an administration official.

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Five soldiers were killed in northwestern Colombia in an attack blamed on the Gulf Clan, the country’s most powerful narco trafficking cartel, officials said on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila).

The soldiers were attacked with “explosive artifacts by presumed members… of the Gulf Clan” while patrolling in a vehicle in a coca leaf-growing region of the Cordoba department, the army said in a statement.

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