Russia still building forces on Ukraine border, says top Nato official
Nato secretary general contradicts president Vladimir Putin’s claim of ‘partial’ withdrawal
Russia is building up its military forces on Ukraine’s border with more troops on their way, contradicting Moscow’s claims of a drawdown, Nato’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said.
Despite suggestions from the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday that a "partial" withdrawal was in effect, Stoltenberg warned that Russian military capability was only increasing in number and strength.
The former Norwegian prime minister said Nato needed to be "prepared for the worst" while holding out hope that the signalling from Putin in recent days was evidence of a sincere desire to find a diplomatic way through the crisis.
Before a two-day meeting of Nato’s 30 defence ministers, Stoltenberg told reporters at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels: "So far we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground. On the contrary, it appears that Russia continues the military buildup.
"We are, of course, monitoring very closely what Russia does in and around Ukraine. What we see is that they have increased the number of troops and more troops are on their way and so, so far, no de-escalation.
"But of course, we hear all the messages about diplomacy and we are ready to engage in diplomatic efforts with Russia."
Stoltenberg said, however, that the evidence on the ground "contradicts the message of real diplomatic efforts".
During a press conference with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin told reporters that he was undertaking "a partial withdrawal of troops from the areas of our exercises".
On Wednesday, the Russian defence ministry released footage on its Zvezda television channel reportedly showing tanks, armoured personnel carriers and mobile artillery elements of the 42nd motorised rifle division crossing the Crimean bridge and heading away from the peninsular.
Izvestia, a Russian newspaper with sources in the defence ministry, reported that the units returning to their bases were the 3rd, 42nd, and 150th motorised rifle divisions.
Analysts noted, however, that two of the three of those divisions are stationed very close to Ukraine.
The 3rd motorised rifle division has permanent bases to the northeast of Ukraine while the 150th motorised rifle division is garrisoned near Rostov-on-Don, just to Ukraine’s southeast.
Just the 42nd motorised rifle division would be taking a longer trip back to Chechnya, if the units return to their permanent bases.
Ruslan Leviev, of the open source Conflict Intelligence Team, drafted a map of their permanent bases, noting that some of the troops were "being withdrawn in the direction of the border with Ukraine."
The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Nato suffered from a "handicap" that prevented it from "soberly assessing the situation".
US president, Joe Biden, said in an address on Tuesday that he believed that more than 150,000 Russian troops remained near Ukraine’s borders, more than 60% of the country’s ground forces.
Stoltenberg would not give a definitive number with regard to the size of the Russian presence on Wednesday, noting that the Kremlin pulled troops back and forth over time. He added, however, that the capability on the border was sufficient to launch a successful "fully fledged" invasion without notice.
"I have talked about well over 100,000, but there has been that steady increase," he said. "So we are seeing that it goes up and up and up – and it continues to increase. So I think that the most important thing now is to closely monitor what Russia does and we really call on them to do what they say, and that is to de-escalate, to withdraw forces.
"Of course, what we’ve seen several times over the last months is that they move in with a high number of troops and heavy equipment. Then they take most of the troops out again but the equipment stays. Then they can very easily, very quickly, send the personnel back again and they are operating up with all the capabilities in place."
After his trip to Moscow, Scholz had suggested that a war over Ukraine’s right to join Nato was a folly, given the unlikelihood of it happening during Putin’s term in office.
Stoltenberg said: "My message is that this is for 30 allies to decide. Russia is not deciding who’s going to be a member of Nato or not. And this is a matter of principle that all our allies have stated clearly again, and again."
In Strasbourg, the European commission president Ursula von der Leyen told MEPs the Kremlin had a decision to make, with the EU ready to strike hard with a package of sanctions that would include cutting off exports of hi-tech components "for which Russia is almost entirely dependent on us".
She added that EU was ready for the fallout, including a reduction in gas supply, as alternatives had been negotiated and the EU was "now on the safe side of winter".
"One of the main lessons we have already learnt is we must diversify our energy sources and we must get rid of the dependency of Russian gas", she said.
