The US has said it is increasingly concerned about Russian militarization along Ukraine’s border as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travels to the eastern front line.
The number of Russian troops on the border with the former Soviet republic is now greater “than ever since 2014”, when the war broke out in eastern Ukraine for the first time and Russia seized the Crimean region, the press secretary of the White House, Jen Psaki, said in Washington.
“The United States is increasingly concerned about recent increasing Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, including Russian troop movements on the border with Ukraine,” Psaki said on Thursday. “It’s all about signs.”
Her comments come after the Ukrainian president visited the eastern front line, where fighting between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists has intensified in recent weeks.
Images released by Zelenskiy’s office showed the 43-year-old leader dressed in the trenches in a helmet and bulletproof vest, handing out awards to Ukrainian soldiers and shaking their hands.
The protracted conflict in Ukraine’s predominantly Russian-speaking east has claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2014.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday called on Moscow to reduce its troop cultivation.
In a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Merkel asked him to scale down the “strengthening of troops” at the border “to ease tensions”, her office said in a statement.
During his frontline visit, Zelenskiy thanked the soldiers ‘for the protection of our country’ and said ‘there is indeed an escalation’ in eastern Ukraine.
“All commanders understand that snipers are targeting our guys,” Zelenskiy said, adding that 26 Ukrainian troops had died since the beginning of the year, compared to 50 in 2020.
In Moscow, Kremlin leader Dmitry Kozak issued a new warning to Kiev on Thursday, saying Russia might “have to” take action against Russian speakers in the war-torn east. defend.
But, he added, an escalation would be “the beginning of the end of Ukraine” and described the scenario for the ex-Soviet country as “not a shot in the leg, but in the face”.
A new round of Ukraine talks is on April 19, he added.
The struggle in the conflict, which erupted after the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, subsided in 2020 when a new ceasefire agreement was reached last year.
But clashes, mainly involving artillery and mortar fire, have escalated again since the beginning of the year, with both sides blaming each other.
Ukrainian separatists are widely regarded as the political and military support of Russia, which Moscow denies.
Ukraine accused Russia last week of amassing thousands of military personnel at its northern and eastern borders as well as on the Crimean peninsula.
Along with France and Germany, Ukraine and Russia are part of the Normandy format of countries that have been trying to resolve the conflict since 2015 but could not end the fighting.
Western allies in Kiev have repeatedly warned Russia against further action.
The Kremlin did not deny the troop movements, but insisted that Moscow “threatens no one”.
Zelenskiy this week urged NATO to accelerate its country’s request for membership of the alliance, saying it was the only way to end the conflict.
Alliance members responded with calls for Kiev to pursue military and defense reforms.
In a statement on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said NATO’s support for Ukraine did not contribute to the security and resolution of the conflict.
She added that Moscow was concerned about ‘financial and logistical support of the Ukrainian army by NATO countries’, as well as the alliance that provides lethal weapons and Western instructors who train Ukrainian military personnel.
Analysts are divided over Russia’s true intentions amid the latest increase in tensions with Kiev, and some observers believe that Moscow may test Joe Biden’s commitment to defend Ukraine.
In his first call with Zelenskiy last week, Biden reaffirmed Washington’s unwavering support for Kiev in the conflict.