MOSCOW – The tense conflict over Ukraine shifted further into full crisis mode Monday, with NATO saying it was moving more military equipment into Eastern Europe and Russia continuing to build up massed forces along the border with Ukraine, amid fears that it will invade its neighbor.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was watching NATO’s moves and President Vladimir Putin was “taking measures to ensure that our security and our interests are properly protected.”
The Belarusian Defense Ministry said Monday that Russia troops continued to arrive in the country, which borders Ukraine, ahead of a major training exercise next month. Further video surfaced on social media Monday showing Russian military convoys and trains with military equipment moving across southern Russia and Belarus
NATO said Monday it would send additional ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe. That followed reports that the Biden administration was considering sending thousands of U.S. forces as well as armaments to reinforce NATO allies in Poland and the Baltics and imposing new export controls aimed at damaging strategic Russian industries.
NATO said its members are “putting forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to NATO deployments in eastern Europe, reinforcing Allied deterrence and defense as Russia continues its military build-up in and around Ukraine.”
“I welcome Allies contributing additional forces,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. “NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance.”
The White House said President Joe Biden will hold a secure video call on Monday afternoon with European leaders to discuss “Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s borders.”
Western nations also began taking the kind of dramatic steps reserved for the eve of anticipated armed action.
Britain ordered some diplomats and their families to leave Ukraine, a day after the United States ordered families of diplomats to leave Kyiv and authorized nonessential diplomatic staff to leave. The State Department also cautioned American citizens to consider leaving Ukraine, with U.S. officials warning that an attack could happen “at any time.”
Russia has continued to rapidly scale up its military presence near Ukraine and in Belarus to unprecedented levels in recent days, according to military analysts.
As Russia massed forces near Ukraine, it made a series of sweeping demands to the United States and NATO last month, including that Ukraine be barred from joining the alliance, a condition that NATO officials ruled out. Diplomatic talks have failed to resolve the crisis.
“Unfortunately, we live in such an aggressive environment. Unfortunately, we are all reading reports that NATO is making certain decisions,” Peskov said. “This is the reality in which we exist.”
Russian officials have repeatedly denied any plan to invade Ukraine and asserted that Russia has a right to move troops and hold military exercises on its own territory and with allies. Russian and Belarusian officials have announced joint military exercises in Belarus next month, raising Western fears of a possible ground attack on northern Ukraine from Belarus, and Russian military officials announced a naval exercise involving 20 vessels from the Baltic Fleet.
The Russian Defense Ministry last week announced it would send 12 Su-35 fighters, two S-400 battalions and a Pantsir-S air defense system to Belarus.
Peskov blamed the United States and NATO for the escalation of tensions over Ukraine, accusing them of stoking “informational hysteria” against Russia. He complained of “lies and fakes” coming from Western officials.
“I want to draw your attention to the fact that all of this is not happening because of what we, Russia, are doing. It is all happening because of what the United States [and] NATO are doing and because of the information they are spreading,” Peskov told journalists.
Peskov also accused Ukraine of boosting its forces along the line of contact that divides Kyiv-controlled Ukraine from two unrecognized separatist republics, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic. The regions, backed by Russia, split from Ukraine in 2014 after Moscow annexed Crimea. The resulting conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 13,000 people, continues.
The threat of a Ukraine attack against the regions was “now very high,” Peskov claimed.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said that Kyiv had repeated many times that “Ukraine is committed to peace and diplomacy, and does not plan any military attacks.”
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Ukraine of moving forces to its northern border with Belarus and threatened to further bolster the Belarusian side of the border.
“We just want to protect our southern border,” he said, speaking at a meeting with the head of the Belarusian border guards, the BelTA state news agency reported.
European Union president Ursula von der Leyen on Monday announced 1.2 billion euros ($1.35 billion) in emergency aid to help Kyiv meet financing needs “due to the conflict.”
Despite the escalation, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Monday that E.U. countries would not scale back staffing at embassies or send diplomatic families home.
“We are not going to do the same thing because we don’t know any specific reasons,” Borrell told journalists before a meeting of E.U. foreign ministers that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to join online, Reuters reported. “Negotiations are going on,” Borrell added.
Members of the 27-member bloc have been split on what sanctions should be on the table and whether to send defense weapons to Ukraine.
German officials Monday ruled out any change to Berlin’s decision not to supply Kyiv with defensive weapons but Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Berlin was working with Washington and E.U. members on potential joint sanctions should Russia invade.
The German Foreign Ministry said Monday that families of German diplomats were given the option of leaving Ukraine, but diplomats would stay. “This is the appropriate measure in the current situation,” said spokesman Christofer Burger.
Nikolenko, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Monday the U.S. move to send home some diplomats was premature and overly cautious, given that there has been no material change to Ukraine’s security situation.
“While we respect the right of foreign states to ensure the security of their diplomatic missions, we consider such step by the American side to be premature and sign of excess caution,” he said in a statement. “In fact, there have been no cardinal changes in the security situation recently,” he added, noting that the concentration of Russian forces on Ukraine’s borders began last April.
Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, said the decisions by the United States and Britain to scale back embassy staff were “worrying” but added that American business executives in Ukraine were doing “business as usual,” while making contingency plans.
“But I think, you know, it still is hoping for the best but preparing for what may come,” Hunder said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Monday described the U.S. decision to authorize nonessential staff to leave as “strange.”
“Their information policy agenda is strange and unwise,” Zakharova told independent Echo of Moscow radio. “They’ve been shooting off their reports one after another, but all of them have missed.” She said Russia’s embassy in Kyiv is operating normally, disputing Western media reports that staffing had been reduced.
Earlier, Zakharova accused Washington, not Moscow, of preparing possible “military provocations” in Ukraine in a Telegram post. She speculated that Washington and its allies were aiming to “prepare” Western public opinion for military action.
Explaining the decision to order diplomatic families to leave, the State Department said that Russia was “conducting disinformation operations and fomenting unrest” in Ukraine. It said it was unclear whether Putin has decided to invade, “but he is building the military capacity along Ukraine’s borders to have that option ready at any time.”
In recent days, the United States and Britain have aired allegations of two separate Russian plans to destabilize the Ukrainian government and install a pro-Moscow government. Russian officials have denied the allegations.
(c) 2022, The Washington Post · Robyn Dixon, David L. Stern
{Matzav.com}
Its mamesh pashut. Biden is deep in the dumps. He needs a massive publicity boost. So he is egging on a non happening war (minor incursion etc ) and pretending theres a massive crisis, even ukraine announed that:
“A source close with Volodymyr Zelensky said the Ukrainian president doesn’t feel there is an ‘imminent threat’ to Kiev as Russia poises itself to invade”
“The source also said: ‘Quite frankly these Americans are safer in Kiev than they are in Los Angeles … or any other crime-ridden city in the U.S.,’ in a shot at spiking U.S. crime rates”
Then Biden will call it all off and declare himself worlds hero for saving ukraine and preventing war
Then