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Activities by Russian armed forces near the border with Ukraine are causing concern in NATO. Secretary General Stoltenberg recalls the events of 2014 and beyond. “Scare tactics”?
Brussels / Moscow – NATO is alarmed by the renewed deployment of Russian forces not far from Ukraine.
“Large and unusual” troop concentrations have been seen near the borders in recent weeks, said Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday on the sidelines of a meeting with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Brussels. They are similar to the parade that took place in the first half of the year.
Any further provocation or aggressive action by Russia would be worrying, Stoltenberg warned. NATO is monitoring the situation very closely.
The federal government made a similar statement. “We are watching these military activities by Russia with concern, and we are also in intensive exchange with our European and our transatlantic partners,” said a spokesman for the Foreign Office in Berlin. The incumbent minister Heiko Maas (SPD) said in Brussels in the afternoon: “We are making it clear to Moscow at all levels that we see this and that we of course assume that this cannot be a starting point for further escalation.” Chancellor Angela Merkel I also raised the subject in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On the question of whether the military alliance expected Moscow to want to further destabilize Ukraine, Stoltenberg said that Russia had already shown that it had the will and when it annexed the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and supported the separatists in the eastern Ukrainian Donbass region have the skills to use military force. Nobody should speculate too much, but the expansion of the military presence is a fact and unusual.
Kuleba said it was now important that there was close coordination to deter Russia. Whatever the price of deterrent, the price of a new conflict will be higher.
In view of the accusations that have been raised repeatedly for weeks, Russia had emphasized that it could move troops on its territory at its own discretion. In addition, the Russian leadership repeatedly pointed out that there is a presence of the US Navy in the Black Sea. In contrast to the USA, Russia is a neighbor of the Black Sea and has repeatedly criticized the maneuvers.
With regard to the allegations against Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov emphasized that Russia is not a threat to anyone. US allegations that Russian troops are preparing to invade Ukraine have been labeled misinformation.
The clear statements on the part of NATO are also noteworthy because the Secretary of the Council for National Security and Defense of Ukraine, Olexij Danilov, said on Friday that there was no evidence of a greater concentration of Russian troops on the border. The Ukrainian President Volodomyr Selenskyj also warned against “scare tactics” until the very end. The Ukrainian army is able to defend the country, he said. dpa
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