The United States and its allies have expressed concern about what they have called “unusual Russian military activity” in the Ukrainian border region, and have asked Moscow for clarification on the matter.
This Friday (12), two ministers from France, Jean-Yves Le Drian, minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Florence Parly, minister of the Armed Forces, received their Russian counterparts, ministers Serguei Lavrov and Serguei Choigu, and, according to a statement from the French government, “they expressed their concerns about the deteriorating security situation in Ukraine and clearly warned of the serious consequences that any further attempts to undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine would have.”
On Wednesday (10), the press secretary of the Pentagon, John Kirby, had already highlighted the fear of the West for not knowing “what the Russian intentions are”. “Obviously, we would like to understand this better. And we don’t want to see any action further destabilize what is already a very tense part of the world. And we urge Russia to be clear about its intentions and to comply with the Minsk agreements (ceasefire in the Donbass region),” he declared.
A report published last week by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry pointed to a concentration of around 90,000 Russian troops near the Ukrainian border.
“Our concern is that Russia could make a serious mistake in trying to remake what it undertook in 2014 when it gathered forces along the border, entered sovereign Ukrainian territory and did so by falsely claiming it was provoked,” the US secretary of state said. Antony Blinken this week, referring to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Russian-backed separatists took control of areas in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in the same year, where conflicts are still raging.
“So the script we’ve seen in the past was (Russia) claiming some provocation as a justification for doing what it intended and planned to do. That’s why we’re looking at the matter very carefully,” Blinken said in remarks published by CNN.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski thanked on Facebook for the support of allies in the West. “Our Western partners provided data on the active movement of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border and their increasing concentration. Above all, we are very grateful to our partners for this information. This is proof of support for Ukraine,” he wrote.
Moscow, for its part, denied its intention to invade Ukraine again. “These headlines do nothing more than fuel meaningless and unfounded tensions. Russia poses no threat to anyone,” Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov said, according to a Reuters report.
In an article for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, retired American military and Russian military affairs expert Rob Lee assessed that Moscow’s main objective with these moves might be to send a message to the West – Russia had already concentrated troops on the border with Russia. Ukraine this year, in March and April.
“A better explanation is that this concentration was intended to deter future actions by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) or the United States, as a renewed effort to allow Ukraine to join NATO, continue to sell arms to Kiev or apply new sanctions against Russia,” he argued.
“This was a demonstration that Russia could respond asymmetrically to anti-Russian policies adopted by the US and NATO by employing military force against Ukraine.”
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