MOSCOW : The Kremlin on Monday strongly rejected the U.S. claims of a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine, saying it could be a ruse intended to cover up what it described as Ukrainian leadership’s aggressive intentions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed U.S. media allegations of Moscow’s purported plans to invade Ukraine as part of efforts to discredit Russia. He insisted that troop movements on Russia’s own territory shouldn’t concern anyone.
Ukraine complained earlier this month that Russia has kept tens of thousands of troops not far from the two countries’ borders after conducting war games in an attempt to further pressure its ex-Soviet neighbor. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has supported a separatist insurgency that broke out that year in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking to Ukraine’s foreign minister this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that Russia’s “playbook” was to build up forces near the border and then invade, “claiming falsely that it was provoked.”
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, said in an interview with the Military Times over the weekend that Russia has concentrated 92,000 troops near Ukraine and could launch an attack from several directions, including from Belarus, in late January or early February.
“The number of provocations has been growing, and those provocations have been conducted using the weapons that NATO countries sent to Ukraine,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “We are watching it with a grave concern.”
Russia has cast its weight behind the separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland known as Donbas that has left more than 14,000 people dead. But Moscow has repeatedly denied any presence of its troops in eastern Ukraine.
Russia routed the Georgian army in the brief conflict that erupted when Georgia attempted to reclaim control over a Russia=backed separatist province. Moscow then recogrnized the independence of Georgia’s two separatist provinces after the war.
APN
