As Ukrainians waved flags in a show of defiance of a feared Russian invasion, the US reported that Moscow had added as many as 7,000 troops to forces stationed along the border — a warning that contradicted Kremlin declarations that military units were being pulled back.
A Russian invasion of Ukraine did not materialize on Wednesday, as originally feared, but after a handful of positive signals from Moscow that eased tensions earlier in the week, the pendulum appeared to swing in the opposite direction again.
Western allies said that the threat of an attack remained strong, with an estimated 150,000-plus Russian troops on three sides of Ukraine.
Photo: Reuters
Although Russia has said it is pulling back some troops, a senior US administration official said that some forces arrived only recently and that there had been a marked increase in false claims by Russians that the Kremlin might use as pretext for an invasion.
The US official said that those claims included reports of unmarked graves of civilians allegedly killed by Ukrainian forces, assertions that the US and Ukraine are developing biological or chemical weapons, and claims that the West is funneling in guerrillas to kill Ukrainians.
The official was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive operations and spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
The official did not provide underlying evidence for the assertions.
“We haven’t seen a pullback,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “can pull the trigger. He can pull it today. He can pull it tomorrow. He can pull it next week. The forces are there if he wants to renew aggression against Ukraine,” Blinken said.
Asked why Russians would claim to be withdrawing when government intelligence, commercial satellite photographs and social media videos showed no evidence of that, US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said: “This is the Russian playbook, to paint a picture publicly ... while they do the opposite.”
Maxar Technologies, a commercial satellite imagery company that has been monitoring the Russian buildup, reported that new photos show heightened Russian military activity near Ukraine, including the construction of a pontoon bridge in Belarus less than 6km from the Ukrainian border.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance also had not seen “any withdrawal of Russian forces,” as did some European governments.
In Moscow yesterday, the Kremlin said that Russia’s withdrawal of forces would take place over an extended period.
“This is a process that will take some time,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
“The [Russian] defense ministry has reported that certain phases of the exercises are coming to an end, and as they do, military units are returning to permanent bases,” Peskov said.
However, forces “can’t just take to the air and all fly away,” he said, adding that the ministry “has a schedule.”
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