Russia-Ukraine crisis Live Updates: On Russia’s claims of pullback, US says Moscow added 7,000 troops at border
Ukraine Crisis Live: There is a growing Russian military presence at Ukraine’s borders, Western countries warned, as Estonia said battle groups were moving ahead of a likely attack to occupy “key terrain,” contradicting Moscow’s insistence of a pullback. More armoured vehicles, helicopters and a field hospital have been spotted, Britain’s defense intelligence chief said in rare public comments.
Up to 7,000 more troops have moved to the border in recent days, including some arriving on Wednesday, a senior official in US President Joe Biden’s administration said, without providing evidence.
Russian defence ministry Wednesday announced the end of Crimea military drills, reported news agency AFP. The Russian defence ministry shared a video of Russian military equipment and forces leaving Crimea. The move comes after Moscow said Tuesday that some of its troops are returning to home bases, indicating cooling of tensions regarding the Ukraine issue.
A series of cyberattacks Tuesday knocked the websites of the Ukrainian army, the defense ministry and major banks offline. At least 10 Ukrainian websites were unreachable due to the attacks, including the defense, foreign and culture ministries and Ukraine’s two largest state banks. One European diplomat told Reuters that cyberattacks were a longstanding component of Russian strategy, and had been used by Moscow in past military confrontations with Georgia and Ukraine. “It’s part of their playbook,” the official said.
Russia’s top diplomat has advised President Vladimir Putin to keep talking with the West on Moscow’s security demands, a signal from the Kremlin that it intends to continue diplomatic efforts amid US warnings of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow wanted guarantees from the West that NATO won’t allow Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to join as members, and that the alliance will halt weapons deployments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe, the demands flatly rejected by the West. The US and its NATO allies have repeatedly warned that Russia will pay a high price for any invasion—but they have sometimes struggled to present a united front.
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from office by a popular uprising. Moscow responded by annexing the Crimean Peninsula and then backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed over 14,000 people
A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped halt large-scale battles, but regular skirmishes have continued, and efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled.
With Thanks Refrence to: https://indianexpress.com/article/world/russia-ukraine-news-live-updates-putin-nato-us-china-7774499/
