Ukraine crisis: Russia ratchets up tensions with massive troop build-up

Russia sent 30,000 troops, weapons to Belarus: NATO

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg expressed concern on Thursday that Russia is continuing its military buildup around Ukraine, and that it has now deployed more troops and military equipment to Belarus than at any time in 30 years.

Pictures taken from Maxar satellite showed heavy deployment of not just troops but a heavy cache of arms, armour, and artillery, many of which were transported by train from faraway bases, according to media reports.

Meanwhile, more high-level diplomacy unfolded in Moscow and Kyiv amid deep uncertainty about Russia’s intentions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hosted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks in the Ukrainian capital. Russian President Vladimir Putin was to meet with his Argentine counterpart, Alberto Fernandez, in Moscow.

Shifting the onus of reducing possible hostilities, Russia said it was destructive for President Joe Biden to move additional troops to Europe and station more along NATO’s eastern flank as the tension over Ukraine continues.

The reaction came a day after Pentagon said about 2,000 soldiers will travel from the US to Europe in the coming days. Another 1,000 troops based in Germany will be deployed in Romania.

Meanwhile, Russia now has more than 100,000 troops stationed near Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders, raising concern that Moscow might invade again, as it did in 2014, and destabilise the Ukrainian economy. Russian officials deny that an invasion is planned.

“Over the last days, we have seen a significant movement of Russian military forces into Belarus. This is the biggest Russian deployment there since the Cold War,” Stoltenberg told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

He said Russian troop numbers in Belarus are likely to climb to 30,000, with the backing of special forces, advanced fighter jets, Iskander short-range ballistic missiles and S-400 ground-to-air missile defence systems.

“So we speak about a wide range of modern military capabilities. All this will be combined with Russia’s annual nuclear forces exercise, expected to take place this month,” he said.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu was in Minsk to check on preparations for major Russia-Belarus war games scheduled for February 10-20. Shoigu met with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Speaking about the drills, Lukashenko said the goal was “to reinforce the border with Ukraine”.

At the same time, Belarus’ defence ministry accused Ukraine of violating the country’s airspace with a drone last month. The ministry summoned Ukraine’s defense attache and handed him a note of protest over “frequent violations of the state border” with Belarus.

Kyiv rejected the allegation and accused Belarus of working with Russia to try to further unsettle Ukraine. “We call on Minsk to refrain from playing along with Russia’s destabilizing activities,” foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said on Twitter. Ukraine’s defence minister sought again to project calm, saying the probability of an invasion was “low”, and he welcomed a change by US officials, who stopped using the term “imminent” when describing the risk of a Russian attack.