Russia spent upwards of $50 billion to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, then concocted the most elaborate doping scheme in history — all to cement its standing as a global sports superpower. The country’s invasion of Ukraine, coming on the heels of yet another drug scandal that consumed the Beijing Olympics earlier this month, could serve to undermine an athletic dynasty tarnished by cheating and deception, and often countered with only tepid pushback from international sports leaders. If a further reckoning comes, it would damage Russia’s ability to host events domestically and dominate them abroad. It would deliver a financial and a psychological blow. And it would compromise the image that President Vladimir Putin and leaders before him have tried to cultivate — one of a prosperous country fortified by strong athletes who beat their international opponents in the games people play. Read:Russian troops enter Ukraine's 2nd largest city of Kharkiv Edwin Moses, the American gold-medal hurdler who had a key role in sorting through the Russian scandals, recalled trying to explain Moscow’s point of view to anti-doping leaders. “One thing I was always trying to get across to them was, ‘You don’t understand how important sports are to them,’” Moses said. “And I’d tell them, ‘You don’t understand how far they’re willing to go to corrupt it.’” In addition to widespread condemnation from Western governments, Russia’s move into Ukraine was largely disparaged by major sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. A number of federations, including skiing, curling and Formula 1, pulled premier events out of Russia. European soccer’s governing body UEFA led the way when it relocated this spring’s Champions League final from St. Petersburg to Paris. The International Biathlon Union banned Russia from its events. The largest conglomerate of them all, the IOC, condemned the invasion. One economics professor estimated the financial loss of the Champions League final could be in the tens of millions of dollars, a fraction of what Russia might forfeit from all the relocated events. But, he said, money is a small part of what motivates Putin. “He’s in it for the prestige and power,” said Victor A. Matheson of College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.. “The real thing here is that this is a big blow to his ego. He loves being in charge of things.” Russia’s power in the world sports community is most sharply defined by its relationship with the IOC. Even though Putin’s country officially was banned from the Beijing Games, it fielded a team of more than 200 athletes competing as members of the “Russian Olympic Committee.” They combined to win 32 medals, the second-biggest haul at the Games. Every bit as notable was that Putin attended the opening ceremony with IOC leader Thomas Bach at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium. It was a show of defiance: Putin was there, while the U.S. and some of its allies refused to send diplomats to protest China’s human rights record. It also underscored how Putin was in good enough standing with the IOC to be present despite the ban. “In Putin’s mind right now, Russia will be at the Olympics again” three years from now in Paris, said Paul Massaro, a senior policy adviser to Congress who works on issues involving sports and international corruption. “But I’m not sure he totally appreciates what a paradigm shift he’s created. I don’t want to be eating these words, but I actually think Russia could be banned this time.” The Russian government has portrayed the doping investigations as politically driven by the West. The IOC’s recent condemnation of Moscow over Ukraine focused on the breach of the “Olympic Truce,” a U.N.-sanctioned call for world peace that remains in play until March 20, seven days after the close of the Paralympic Games in Beijing. Despite the rhetoric, Bach would have to reverse years of precedent in his relatively soft treatment of Russia in the country’s long-running doping scandals. What steps he takes to back up the IOC’s most recent show of displeasure will shape Russia’s role in world sports for the next decade or longer. Potentially working against the country was the sordid doping case involving 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva that consumed the Beijing Games. She tested positive for using a banned heart medication, and the result wasn’t announced by anti-doping officials until after she’d won gold as part of the team competition, even though the sample was taken weeks earlier. That put Bach in the rare position of openly criticizing Russia, a move that, in turn, brought a rebuke from the Kremlin. The Olympic movement, and international sports in general, have tolerated far worse from Russia, and before that, the Soviet Union. Moses told of traveling to the Soviet Union in the late 1980s — long before anti-doping rules had been globally codified — to try to work out a drug-fighting agreement with Soviets. “Their reason for setting up a (anti-doping) lab was completely different from our reason,” Moses said. “We tried to put a lid on doping. They tried to make sure they didn’t get caught. It was the prestige of those athletes winning gold medals. They wanted it, and those athletes would become national heroes and treasures.” Read: ICRC asked to repatriate bodies of soldiers Before the IOC’s next move, there will be other signals, besides relocating events, about how world sports deals with Russia. Norwegian politician Linda Helleland, a former vice president at the World Anti-Doping Agency and longtime critic of Russia, said she will promote a policy at the Council of Europe that urges sports organizations to exclude Russian athletes from international competitions. Upcoming events include next month’s world figure skating championships, World Cup soccer qualifying this spring and the world track and field championships in Oregon in July. World Athletics is unique in that it has taken a tough stance in the Russian doping saga since 2015. Russia has been limited to only a handful of athletes at recent major championships, and that is not expected to change before summer. “We now witness brutal actions in the Ukraine. We can’t let Russia get away with it again with no consequences,” Helleland said. The biggest test, however, will be how the IOC responds to Russia’s eligibility for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine both came directly after the close of the Winter Olympics, with Russia enjoying success on the playing field and a long gap before its next appearance on sports’ biggest international stage. “We’ve been giving him a free pass for over a decade, so why would Putin not think he could get away with this?” Massaro said. “Of course the Olympics are part of this. And here we are again, and this time, he’s crossed the Rubicon in the most profound way.”

The U.S. issued some of its starkest, most detailed warnings yet about how a Russian invasion of Ukraine might unfold, and its Western allies went on high alert for any attempts by the Kremlin to create a false pretext for a new war in Europe. U.S. President Joe Biden sounded unusually dire Thursday, as he warned that Washington saw no signs of a promised Russian withdrawal — but instead saw more troops moving toward the border with Ukraine, indicating Moscow could invade within days. “Every indication we have is they’re prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine,” Biden told reporters at the White House. He said the U.S. has “reason to believe” that Russia is “engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in,” but he did not provide details. Western fears focus on an estimated 150,000 Russian troops — about 60% of Russia’s overall ground forces — posted around Ukraine’s borders. The Kremlin insists it has no plans to invade, but it has long considered Ukraine part of its sphere of influence and NATO’s eastward expansion an existential threat. A key demand in this crisis is that NATO promise never to allow Ukraine to join. Biden planned to speak by phone Friday with trans-Atlantic leaders about the Russian military buildup and continued efforts at deterrence and diplomacy. Also read: NATO: Russia misleads world on troop movements near Ukraine U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed some conclusions of U.S. intelligence, part of a strategy designed to expose and pre-empt any invasion planning. The U.S. has declined to reveal much of the evidence underlying its claims. Blinken told diplomats at the U.N. Security Council that a sudden, seemingly violent event staged by Russia to justify an invasion would kick off the assault. Blinken mentioned a “so-called terrorist bombing” inside Russia, a staged drone strike, “a fake, even a real attack … using chemical weapons.” The invasion would open with cyberattacks, along with missile strikes and bombs across Ukraine, he said. Blinken described the entry of Russian troops, advancing on Kyiv, a city of nearly 3 million, and other key targets. By Thursday evening, U.S. and European officials were on high alert for any Russian attempts to create a pretext for invasion, according to a Western official familiar with intelligence findings. Ukrainian government officials shared intelligence with allies that suggested the Russians might try to shell the Luhansk area in the disputed Donbas region on Friday morning as part of an effort to create a false reason to take military action, according to the official who was not authorized to comment publicly. Also read: Ukraine tensions: West skeptical of Russian overtures Violence spiked in a long-running standoff in that area on Thursday, fueling worries it could provide the spark for wider conflict. The region already has been the site of fighting since 2014 that has killed 14,000. Separatist authorities in the Luhansk region reported an increase in Ukrainian government shelling along the tense line of contact. Separatist official Rodion Miroshnik said rebel forces returned fire. Ukraine disputed the claim, saying separatists had shelled its forces but they didn’t fire back. The Ukrainian military command said shells hit a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, wounding two teachers, and cut power to half the town. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that the kindergarten shelling “by pro-Russian forces is a big provocation.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov countered with the same: ”We have repeatedly warned that the excessive concentration of Ukrainian armed forces in the immediate vicinity of the line of demarcation, coupled with possible provocations, could pose a terrible danger.” Western powers scrambled to avert, or prepare for, eventual invasion. NATO’s defense ministers discussed ways to bolster defenses in Eastern Europe, while EU leaders huddled over how to punish Russia if it invades. Blinken and Vice President Kamala Harris are among political, military and diplomatic leaders heading to an annual security conference in Munich that will see urgent consultations on the crisis. Blinken also plans to meet his Russian counterpart next week. China, a key Russian ally, accused Washington of “playing up and sensationalizing the crisis and escalating tensions.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the U.S. should “take seriously and address Russia’s legitimate and reasonable concerns on security assurance.” At NATO headquarters in Brussels, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin questioned the Russian troop pullout claims. “We’ve seen some of those troops inch closer to that border. We see them fly in more combat and support aircraft,” he said. “We see them sharpen their readiness in the Black Sea. We even see them stocking up their blood supplies. You don’t do these sort of things for no reason, and you certainly don’t do them if you’re getting ready to pack up and go home.” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the West has seen “an increase of troops over the last 48 hours, up to 7,000.” That squared with what a U.S. administration official said a day earlier. Russia says the pullout, announced earlier this week, will take time. Russia also made a new diplomatic overture Thursday, handing the U.S. a response to offers to engage in talks on limiting missile deployments in Europe, restrictions on military drills and other confidence-building measures. The response, released by the Foreign Ministry, deplored the West’s refusal to meet the main Russian security demands and reaffirmed that Moscow could take unspecified “military-technical measures” if the U.S. and its allies continue to stonewall its concerns. At the same time, it said Russia was ready to discuss limits on missile deployments, restrictions on patrol flights by strategic bombers and other steps.

President Joe Biden told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine would cause “widespread human suffering” and that the West was committed to diplomacy to end the crisis but “equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House said Saturday. It offered no suggestion that the hourlong call diminished the threat of an imminent war in Europe. Biden also said the United States and its allies would respond “decisively and impose swift and severe costs” if the Kremlin attacked its neighbor, according to the White House. The two presidents spoke a day after Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned that U.S. intelligence shows a Russian invasion could begin within days and before the Winter Olympics in Beijing end on Feb. 20. Read: US: Civilian toll in Syria raid may be higher than thought Russia denies it intends to invade but has massed well over 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border and has sent troops to exercises in neighboring Belarus, encircling Ukraine on three sides. U.S. officials say Russia’s buildup of firepower has reached the point where it could invade on short notice. The conversation came at a critical moment for what has become the biggest security crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War. U.S. officials believe they have mere days to prevent an invasion and enormous bloodshed in Ukraine. And while the U.S. and its NATO allies have no plans to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, an invasion and resulting punishing sanctions could reverberate far beyond the former Soviet republic, affecting energy supplies, global markets and the power balance in Europe.  “President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our Allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House statement said. Also read: British envoy in Moscow to try to ease Ukraine crisis The call was “professional and substantive” but produced “no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters following the call on condition of anonymity. The official added that it remains unclear whether Putin has made a final decision to move forward with military action. Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy aide, said that while tensions have been escalating for months, in recent days “the situation has simply been brought to the point of absurdity.” He said Biden mentioned the possible sanctions that could be imposed on Russia, but “this issue was not the focus during a fairly long conversation with the Russian leader.” Before talking to Biden, Putin had a telephone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with him in Moscow earlier in the week to try to resolve the crisis. A Kremlin summary of the call suggested that little progress was made toward cooling down the tensions. Putin complained in the call that the United States and NATO have not responded satisfactorily to Russian demands that Ukraine be prohibited from joining the military alliance and that NATO pull back forces from Eastern Europe. In a sign that American officials are getting ready for a worst-case scenario, the United States announced plans to evacuate most of its staff from the embassy in the Ukrainian capital. Britain joined other European nations in urging its citizens to leave Ukraine. Canada has shuttered its embassy in Kyiv and relocated its diplomatic staff to a temporary office in Lviv, located in the western part of the country, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Saturday. Lviv is home to a Ukrainian military base that has served as the main hub for Canada’s 200-soldier training mission in the former Soviet country. The timing of any possible Russian military action remained a key question. The U.S. picked up intelligence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a U.S. official familiar with the findings. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and did so only on condition of anonymity, would not say how definitive the intelligence was. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he told his Russian counterpart Saturday that “further Russian aggression would be met with a resolute, massive and united trans-Atlantic response.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to project calm as he observed military exercises Saturday near Crimea, the peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. “We are not afraid, we’re without panic, all is under control,” he said. Ukrainian armed forces chief commander Lt. Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov issued a more defiant joint statement. “We are ready to meet the enemy, and not with flowers, but with Stingers, Javelins and NLAWs” — anti-tank and -aircraft weapons, they said. “Welcome to hell!” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, also held telephone discussions on Saturday. Further U.S.-Russia tensions arose on Saturday when the Defense Ministry summoned the U.S. Embassy’s military attache after it said the navy detected an American submarine in Russian waters near the Kuril Islands in the Pacific. The submarine declined orders to leave, but departed after the navy used unspecified “appropriate means,” the ministry said. Adding to the sense of crisis, the Pentagon ordered an additional 3,000 U.S. troops to Poland to reassure allies. The U.S. has urged all American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country immediately, and Sullivan said those who remain should not expect the U.S. military to rescue them in the event that air and rail transportation is severed after a Russian invasion. The Biden administration has been warning for weeks that Russia could invade Ukraine soon, but U.S. officials had previously said the Kremlin would likely wait until after the Winter Games ended so as not to antagonize China. Sullivan told reporters on Friday that U.S. intelligence shows that Russia could take invade during the Olympics. He said military action could start with missile and air attacks, followed by a ground offensive. “Russia has all the forces it needs to conduct a major military action,” Sullivan said, adding that “Russia could choose, in very short order, to commence a major military action against Ukraine.” He said the scale of such an invasion could range from a limited incursion to a strike on Kyiv, the capital. Russia scoffed at the U.S. talk of urgency. “The hysteria of the White House is more indicative than ever,” said Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “The Anglo-Saxons need a war. At any cost. Provocations, misinformation and threats are a favorite method of solving their own problems.” Zakharova said her country had “optimized” staffing at its own embassy in Kyiv in response to concerns about possible military actions from the Ukrainian side. In addition to the more than 100,000 ground troops that U.S. officials say Russia has assembled along Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders, the Russians have deployed missile, air, naval and special operations forces, as well as supplies to sustain a war. This week, Russia moved six amphibious assault ships into the Black Sea, augmenting its capability to land marines on the coast. Biden has bolstered the U.S. military presence in Europe as reassurance to allies on NATO’s eastern flank. The 3,000 additional soldiers ordered to Poland come on top of 1,700 who are on their way there. The U.S. Army also is shifting 1,000 soldiers from Germany to Romania, which like Poland shares a border with Ukraine. Russia is demanding that the West keep former Soviet countries out of NATO. It also wants NATO to refrain from deploying weapons near its border and to roll back alliance forces from Eastern Europe — demands flatly rejected by the West. Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from office by a popular uprising. Moscow responded by annexing the Crimean Peninsula and then backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed over 14,000 people. A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped halt large-scale battles, but regular skirmishes have continued, and efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled.  

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that Russia could invade Ukraine “any day,” launching a conflict that would come at an “enormous human cost.” The senior adviser to President Joe Biden offered another stark warning the day after U.S. officials confirmed that Russia has assembled at least 70% of the military firepower it likely intends to have in place by mid-month to give President Vladimir Putin the option of launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “If war breaks out, it will come at an enormous human cost to Ukraine, but we believe that based on our preparations and our response, it will come at a strategic cost to Russia as well,” Sullivan said. Sullivan did not directly address reports that the White House has briefed lawmakers that a full Russian invasion could lead to the quick capture of Kyiv and potentially result in as many as 50,000 casualties as he made appearances on a trio of Sunday talk shows. Read:Russian bombers fly over Belarus amid Ukraine tensions U.S. officials, who discussed internal assessments of the Russian buildup on the condition that they not be identified, sketched out a series of indicators suggesting that Putin intends to start an invasion in the coming weeks, although the size and scale are unclear. They stressed that a diplomatic solution appears to remain possible. Among those military indicators: an exercise of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces that usually is held each fall was rescheduled for mid-February to March. That coincides with what U.S. officials see as the most likely window for invasion. The administration has stepped up warnings in recent days that Russia increasingly seems intent on further invading Ukrainian territory. Last week, Biden administration officials said that intelligence findings showed that the Kremlin had worked up an elaborate plot to fabricate an attack by Ukrainian forces that Russia could use as a pretext to take military action against its neighbor. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that the scheme included production of a graphic propaganda video that would show staged explosions and use corpses and actors depicting grieving mourners. “It could happen as soon as tomorrow or it could take some weeks yet,” Sullivan said. He added that Putin “has put himself in a position with military deployments to be able to act aggressively against Ukraine at any time now.” Sullivan said that the administration held on to hope that the Russians would move to de-escalate the situation through diplomacy. “The key thing is that the United States needs to be and is prepared for any of those contingencies and in lockstep with our allies and partners,” Sullivan said. “We have reinforced and reassured our allies on the eastern flank.” Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, attended a classified briefing last week that administration officials gave to members of Congress. He was asked whether he came away from the briefing thinking it was certain that Russia would move on Ukraine. “I would say the conditions are there. It’s more likely than not. I think the noose is being prepared. It’s around Ukraine right now as we speak. These are dangerous times,” McCaul said. Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the administration was still seeking a diplomatic solution, but “at the same time, we know that the Russians continue to prepare, and we will be working to address the security issues.” Sen. John Barrasso, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Ukraine was the first part of Putin’s plan to reassemble the Soviet Union. He worried about what signal that could send to U.S. adversaries. “He needs to choke on trying to swallow Ukraine because if it’s easy pickings for him, my worry is that then China moves against Taiwan and Iran moves quickly to a nuclear weapon.” Meanwhile, elite U.S troops and equipment landed Sunday in southeastern Poland near the border with Ukraine following Biden’s orders to deploy 1,700 soldiers there amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds more troops from the 82nd Airborne Division are expected to arrive at the Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport. A U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster plane brought a few dozen troops and vehicles. Read: Russia at 70 percent of Ukraine military buildup Their commander is Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, who on Aug. 30 was the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan. “Our national contribution here in Poland shows our solidarity with all of our allies here in Europe and, obviously, during this period of uncertainty we know that we are stronger together,” Donahue said at the airport. Biden ordered additional U.S. troops deployed to Poland, Romania and Germany to demonstrate America’s commitment to NATO’s eastern flank amid the tensions between Russia and Ukraine. NATO’s eastern member Poland borders both Russia and Ukraine. Romania borders Ukraine. The division can rapidly deploy within 18 hours and conduct parachute assaults to secure key objectives. Based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the division’s history goes back to 1917. Biden is set to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday at the White House. Scholz has said that Moscow would pay a “high price” in the event of an attack, but his government’s refusal to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, bolster its troop presence in eastern Europe or spell out which sanctions it would support against Russia has drawn criticism abroad and at home. French President Emmanuel Macron was to arrive Monday in Moscow for talks with Putin, and in the days to come, Scholz will be there, too. Biden and Macron spoke by phone on Sunday, discussing “diplomatic and deterrence efforts in response to Russia’s continued military build-up on Ukraine’s borders,” according to the White House. Sullivan expressed certainty that operation of the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline “will not move forward” if Russia further invades Ukraine. Construction of the pipeline is complete, but gas is not yet flowing. “While it’s true that Germany has not sent arms to Ukraine, after the United States, they are the second largest donor to Ukraine in Europe,” Sullivan said. “The great thing ... about having the kind of alliances we have with 30 NATO allies is that different allies are going to take different pieces of this.” Sullivan appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and ABC’s “This Week.” McCaul spoke on ABC, and Barrasso was on Fox. Thomas-Greenfield was on CNN’s “State of the Union.”