Then, NATO released satellite images corroborating the Ukrainian assertions. But after Mr. Poroshenko visited NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, the secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, made no specific mention of a buildup. Mr. Stoltenberg said in a statement that members of the alliance “remain concerned about the heightened tensions.”
The Pentagon, too, has been cautious. A Defense Department official said the United States military had not seen a significant buildup of Russian military equipment on the Ukrainian border since the naval episode on Nov. 25, aside from a small number of defensive weapons that were moved in recent days.
The satellite image of tanks in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky dated from October, before the Ukrainian ships were seized. While new S-400 missiles were moved into Crimea after the seizure, Russia had already deployed batteries of this type of weapon to the peninsula.
Russia’s southern border with Ukraine, an expanse of wheat fields, grasslands and reedy marshes in the Don River delta, has been a crucible of military activity for years, making it unclear what, exactly, Ukrainian officials are referring to as new deployments. On Dec. 1, Mr. Poroshenko said Russia had stationed 80,000 troops near the Ukrainian border.
“It’s very difficult to verify these kinds of figures, and very often we don’t know what we are trying to verify or look for,” Anna Arutunyan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said in a telephone interview. The number could refer to troops regularly based throughout southern Russia.
But the accusation of a buildup, she said, could become a “self-fulfilling prophesy” if Russia responds to Ukraine’s declaration of martial law by indeed sending reinforcements to the border. Ukrainian television has shown its troops flying on transport planes from western Ukraine to eastern regions closer to Russia.
On Thursday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, accused Ukraine of building up forces and said its military planned an “armed provocation” against the Donetsk People’s Republic, one of the two Russian-backed separatist enclaves. The Ukrainian Army, she said, had “concentrated a military group” for an attack. Ms. Zakharova said Mr. Poroshenko planned the offensive to bolster his chances in a presidential election in Ukraine scheduled for March.
Source : Nytimes
