More than 40 percent of Russian forces concentrated on Ukraine’s border have been attacked, a Pentagon spokesman said on Friday, adding that Russia had begun “destabilizing” the country.
USAwhich estimates that more than 150,000 Russian troops have been deployed in northern, southern and eastern Ukraine since Wednesday, the Pentagon said on condition of anonymity.
“40 to 50%” of these troops “have taken a stand for attack. “It has been growing in places of regular concentration for the last 48 hours,” he told some reporters.
The term “tactical assembly points” refers to areas near front lines where military units go before launching an attack.
According to the US Department of Defense official, Moscow has now deployed 125 Army battalions near the Ukrainian border, compared to the 60 that are there under normal conditions and the 80 that were deployed in early February.
The escalation of clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces and the inflammatory statements of pro-Russian leaders and the Kremlin about the situation in the Russian-speaking regions of Danieck and Lugansk are part of the “destabilization campaign in Ukraine”.
The US Secretary of Defense, General e.a. Lloyd Austin told ABC television that Russian President Vladimir Putin had now gathered the information “needed for a successful invasion” of Ukraine.
“I do not think he is bluffing,” he said in an interview with the television network that aired yesterday, Friday. The interview will be broadcast throughout Sunday.
“He has a number of options at his disposal and he could attack in a short time,” he added, while still in Poland, where he met with US and Polish troops.
Washington has been warning for weeks that Moscow is looking for a pretext at the border to invade Ukraine.
Russia has denied the allegations in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning Russia’s security have been made more than once.
Moscow, in addition to supporting the separatists, annexed part of Ukraine, the Crimean peninsula, in 2014.
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