WASHINGTON: Moscow’s military build-up on the border with Ukraine is even bigger than in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, a Pentagon spokesman said, describing the deployment as “very seriously concerning.”While the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell cited a figure of 150,000 Russian soldiers on the Ukrainian border, before his own services scaled that figure back without explanation to 100,000, US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby declined to name a specific figure.
“It is the largest build-up we’ve seen certainly since 2014, which resulted in the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Kirby told a news conference. “It is certainly bigger than the last one in 2014.”
“I’m not going to get into specific numbers or troop formations in terms of the Russian build-up,” he said.
“We do continue to see that build-up, (it’s), as it was before, very seriously concerning to us,” Kirby said.
“We don’t believe that this build-up is conducive to security and stability along the border with Ukraine and certainly not in occupied Crimea.”
“We certainly heard the Russians proclaim that this is all about training,” he added. “It’s not completely clear to us that that’s exactly the purpose.”
Tensions between Russia and the West have been escalating in recent weeks following an uptick in fighting between Ukraine’s army and pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine.
A Ukrainian soldier was killed and another wounded on Sunday in clashes with separatists in the east of the country, where such confrontations have increased amid renewed tensions with Moscow.
Ukraine fears that the Kremlin, widely regarded as the military and political godfather of pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbass, is looking for a pretext to attack.
Moscow has said it is “not threatening anyone” while also denouncing what it calls Ukrainian “provocations.”
The war in Donbass has claimed more than 13,000 lives, and nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced since it started seven years ago in the wake of Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
The US State Department also branded as an “unprovoked escalation” reported Russian plans to block parts of the Black Sea, which could ultimately impact access to Ukrainian ports.
Russian state media have reported that Moscow intends to close parts of the Black Sea to foreign military and official ships for six months.
Such a move could affect access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait, on the eastern tip of the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
“This represents yet another unprovoked escalation in Moscow’s ongoing campaign to undermine and destabilise Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
Moscow has amassed tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders, as well as in annexed Crimea, sparking warnings from Nato.
