Russian conscripts will take part in military exercises in 2020 in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia.
Photographer: Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Getty Images
Russia has announced the start of mass military exercises, raising tensions with neighboring Ukraine amid Western concerns about the risk of renewed fighting.
More than 4,000 training exercises will be held in Russia’s military districts in April, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday in comments on the ministry’s website.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday reiterated his country’s desire to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in protecting itself from Russia, calling membership “the only way to end the war in eastern Ukraine” in a call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The head of NATO was later released in a tweet saying the alliance remains ‘committed to our close partnership’ with Ukraine.
Ukraine is calling for support amid the build-up of Russian troops along their shared border, raising fears of an increase in the seven-year-long conflict that has claimed 13,000 lives. Russia denies threatening Ukraine and accuses the government in Kiev of preparing a military offensive to regain control of the eastern conflict zone.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday at NATO membership did not help Ukraine “solve its” internal problems. “From our point of view, this will further aggravate the situation,” he said.
Zelenskiy also called for greater international pressure on Russia in a telephone conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday, a day after he spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Ukraine’s foreign and defense ministers held talks with their US and British counterparts last week on tensions in the eastern Donbas region, while Zelenskiy’s chief of staff spoke with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
The US State Department this week expressed concern about Russian troop movements, with spokesman Ned Price saying on Monday: “We are concerned about the recent increase in Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, including the credible reports that have surfaced about Russian troop movements occupy Ukraine’s borders and Crimea. ”
‘Intimidation and aggression’
‘At the highest levels of government, literally, across different institutions, we have sent the message very clearly to our Ukrainian counterparts and implicitly also to the Russians that we stand by Kiev, we stand by our partner, Ukraine, in the face of this intimidation and aggression, ”Price added.
The Russian ruble accelerated its decline amid geopolitical tensions, weakening 1.1% against the dollar to 77.25552 at 18:34 in Moscow, the weakest currency in the emerging market.
Zelenskiy told Trudeau 10 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the eastern area since March 26. The US and the European Union have approved Russia for annexing Crimea in 2014 and supporting separatists in the Ukrainian Donbas region. Russia denies involvement in the fighting.
The US has provided Ukraine with defensive military equipment, including anti-tank anti-tank missiles. In his first official call as president with Zelenskiy last week, Joe Biden promised to stand with Ukraine against Russian “aggression”.
On Tuesday, however, White House spokesman Jen Psaki said questions about NATO membership should be addressed by the alliance.
“This is a decision that NATO must make,” Psaki said.
NATO membership
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, summoned Western nations on Tuesday in support of what he called Kyiv’s ‘absolutely unacceptable actions and statements’.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is bitterly opposed to Ukraine’s efforts to join NATO, although there is little appetite within the alliance to accept a membership application, as well as the slanting of the former Soviet republic to the West. since the revolution in 2014 that drove out pro-Moscow leader Viktor Yanukovych.
“The appearance with which the troops are moving confirms that Russia is more sabotaging than considering a blitzkrieg,” Maxim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote on his website on Monday. Tension between the two sides, however, means that wrongdoing or rogue action could lead them into a new military confrontation, he said.
With the implementation of a peace agreement in 2015, it ceased and a July a weakening ceasefire is intensifying the violence in the position of both parties, said Katharine Quinn-Judge, Ukraine’s analyst, at the International Crisis Group in Brussels.
“It does not necessarily mean that there will be a big increase,” she said. “But we still have to worry, because it’s a symptom of the deadlock in the peace process.”
– With assistance by Jennifer Jacobs
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