Prime Minister Scott Morrison has criticised China for not denouncing Russia’s “threats of terrible violence” against Ukraine.
Despite Moscow denying it is planning to invade Ukraine, US and NATO intelligence suggests Russia is ramping up its presence on the border and preparing to attack.
Mr Morrison said it was important for all nations to “denounce the threats of terrible violence” that Russia was making against Ukraine.
“We denounce it. The United States denounces it. Peace-loving, free nations all around the world are denouncing it,” he told reporters on Friday.
“Those who do not denounce the violence that Russia is threatening Ukraine with, well, that leaves me very concerned.
“The Chinese government is yet to denounce those threats of violence and I urge them to do so.
“They seek to play, they say, a positive role in global peace. Well, they could immediately denounce the threats of violence.
“An invasion of Ukraine is of course imminent and I hope that does not occur, but I think what we are seeing leads us to fear the worst.”
Earlier, Defence Minister Peter Dutton revealed there were no plans to send Australian troops into Ukraine.
Mr Dutton gave an ominous warning about a looming Russian invasion on Friday, saying he believed the world was “on the cusp now of an all-out conflict”.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin was in the process of “executing the final stages of his plan” to invade.
“I think it’s tragic and we’ll see terrible scenes unfolding, and it’s obvious that Ukraine’s been under cyber attack for some time,” Mr Dutton told the Nine Network.
“The Russians have amassed ships in the Black Sea, got troops coming in from different directions and you would expect that President Putin, who obviously can’t be taken at his word, is manufacturing some sort of trigger.”
Asked if he thought it was a “fait accompli”, Mr Dutton said every sign indicated “that that’s the case”.
“I mean, you can hope for an 11th hour miracle. There are lots of European leaders who have tried to avert this but it seems President Putin is pretty intent on his action and direction,” Mr Dutton said.
“That really is going to result in the loss of life, the loss of innocent life and we’ve seen it before in Eastern Europe. We don’t want it repeated but we live in a very uncertain world.”
Despite the all but inevitability of escalation, Mr Dutton ruled out sending Australian troops.
“We work closely with the US and the UK and our partners … but if you look at Australia’s involvement, it’s a long way away,” Mr Dutton said.
“We haven’t been asked for troops, so we have no intention of sending troops.
“This is an issue NATO and Europe needs to deal with and those European leaders really. need to step up and put even more pressure on to Russia to stop them.”
Mr Dutton’s ominous warning comes in the wake of US President Joe Biden saying intelligence suggested Russia was “engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in”.
“Every indication we have is they’re prepared to go into Ukraine and attack Ukraine,” Mr Biden said.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Russia’s false flag operations, including the shelling of a Ukrainian kindergarten, was designed to discredit the Ukrainians.
“The picture is continuing to be very grim,” Mr Johnson said.
“We fear very much that that is a thing we will see moxjmtzywre of over the next few days.”
