Top Nato general in Russian troops alert
A Ukrainian serviceman talks to armed men, believed to be Russian servicemen, who stand guard at a military airbase, in the Crimean town of Belbek near Sevastopol©Reuters
Nato’s top military commander warned on Sunday that Russia was massing troops on the Ukrainian border in a show of force ahead of President Barack Obama’s arrival in Europe, wheer he will press for a united response to a crisis which has shaken the continent.
General Philip Breedlove, commander of US and NATO forces in Europe, said on Sunday that Russian forces just to the east of Ukraine were “very, very sizeable and very, very ready”. They could easily open a second front beyond Ukraine, in Moldova, he said. “Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a friend.”
The news of Russia’s military movements will increase the pressure on Mr Obama as he begins an intense few days of diplomacy on Monday with leaders from the group of seven countries. The West has struggled to counter Mr Putin’s unilateral annexation of Crimea, regarded as the most serious threat to peace in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
Moscow’s actions three weeks after Russian troops arrived in Crimea drew warnings from Andriy Deshchytsia, Ukraine’s acting foreign minister, that the chances of war were “becoming higher”.
There was criticism too from Moscow’s close ally, Alexander Lukashenko. The president of Belarus, said he was worried by the annexation of Crimea. “It gives a free hand, especially to states on the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons. The consequences could be very dangerous. This sets a bad precedent,” he said.
Russia has responded defiantly to the imposition last week of sanctions by the US and EU. On Saturday Russian troops seized a Ukrainian air force base at Belbek in Crimea. Such bases remain dangerous potential flashpoints with some 10,000 Ukrainian troops believed to be based on the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia.
Gen Breedlove said he was particularly concerned that troops could quickly be shifted west of Ukraine to the Russian-speaking territory of Transnistria in Moldova if Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, wanted to expand the regional crisis.
“They represent the next place where Russian-speaking people could be incorporated,” he said. “There is absolutely sufficient force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Transnistria if the decision was made.”
Gen Breedlove said that Russia was heightening tensions by conducting waves of snap military exercises that could ultimately become a genuine invasion force.
Traian Basescu, Romania’s president, has also expressed concerns about an incursion into Moldova, which lies on his country’s north eastern border, accusing Mr Putin of trying to rebuild the borders of the Soviet Union.
Russia rejected concerns about the risk of a Russian invasion of other parts of Ukraine or territories such as Transnistria. Anatoly Antonov, deputy defence minister, said the country was “in compliance with all international agreements to limit the number of troops in the border areas of Ukraine”.
Moscow argues that the movements of troops and military equipment south, some of which have been documented with videos circulated on social media, are related to another large-scale military exercise.
Mr Antonov said that Sergei Shoigu, defence minister, had assured his foreign counterparts that Russia had “no intention to concentrate troops” along Ukraine’s border. Mr Putin also said earlier this week that Moscow did not intend to invade eastern Ukraine.
Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, said on Saturday that the situation in Crimea had been “special and unique”. The incorporation of territories such as Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia backed in the past to secede from Moldova and Georgia respectively, “is not on the agenda,” she said.