প্রকাশ: 17/02/2022
The United States and NATO joined Ukraine on Wednesday
saying there was no sign of Russian troops withdrawing, after military
movements in occupied Crimea fueled reports that the crisis could be abating.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy watched Ukrainian soldiers
training with new Western-supplied anti-tank weapons near Rivne, west of the
capital Kyiv.
He also visited the front-line city of Mariupol to mark what
he had declared Ukraine’s “Day of Unity,” wearing a military-style olive green
coat.
“We are not afraid of anyone, of any enemies,” Zelenskyy
said on a day that Western intelligence had warned Moscow could choose to
invade Ukraine. “We will defend ourselves.”
The rhetoric and demonstration of Ukrainian firepower
contrasted with images on Russian state media that were said to show Moscow’s
forces bringing an end to a major exercise in Crimea.
But Zelenskyy said there was no evidence of Russians pulling
back.
“We are seeing small rotations. I would not call these
rotations the withdrawal of forces by Russia,” he said in televised comments,
adding: “We see no change.”
In Rivne, missiles pounded practice targets, while in Kyiv
hundreds of civilians marched in a stadium with an enormous national banner.
Russia’s huge build-up of troops, missiles and warships
around Ukraine has been billed as Europe’s worst security risk since the Cold
War.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, who hosted a meeting of
alliance defense ministers in Brussels, also dismissed suggestions that the
threat on Ukraine’s border had diminished.
“Moscow has made it clear that it is prepared to contest the
fundamental principles that have underpinned our security for decades and to do
so by using force,” he said.
“I regret to say that this is the new normal in Europe.”
On the reported Russian troop movements, he said: “So far we
do not see any sign of de-escalation on the ground; no withdrawals of troops or
equipment.
“Russia maintains a massive invasion force ready to attack
with high-end capabilities from Crimea to Belarus.”
U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
on Wednesday also warned that no significant withdrawal of Russian troops from
the Ukraine border had been observed.
“The risk of a further military aggression by Russia against
Ukraine remains high,” according to a statement issued by the German
chancellery following a phone call between Scholz and Biden.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded Ukraine be
forbidden from pursuing its ambition to join NATO and wants to redraw the
security map of eastern Europe, rolling back Western influence.
But, backed by a threat of crippling U.S. and EU economic
sanctions, Western leaders are pushing for a negotiated settlement, and Moscow
has signaled it will start to pull forces back.
In the latest such move, on Wednesday the Russian Defense
Ministry said military drills in Crimea — a Ukrainian region that Moscow
annexed in 2014 — had ended and that troops were returning to their garrisons.
While Washington has demanded verifiable evidence of
de-escalation, Biden has nevertheless vowed to push for a diplomatic solution.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed this, telling
reporters: “It is positive that the U.S. president is also noting his readiness
to start serious negotiations.”
Meanwhile, the Pentagon said that three U.S. Navy aircraft
were intercepted by Russian planes in an “unprofessional” manner over the
Mediterranean Sea last weekend.
The U.S. State Department said Russia was attempting to
create a pretext for invading with unsupported claims of “genocide” and mass
graves in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region, which is controlled by
Moscow-backed separatists.
“Over the past several weeks, we’ve also seen Russian
officials and Russian media plant numerous stories in the press, any one of
which could be elevated to serve as a pretext for an invasion,” State
Department Spokesman Ned Price said.
EU leaders, already gathered in Brussels for a summit with
their African counterparts, are now to hold impromptu crisis talks on Russia
and Ukraine on Thursday.
A U.N. Security Council meeting on Thursday is also set to
discuss the crisis.
On Tuesday, Ukraine said the websites of the country’s
Defense Ministry and armed forces as well as private banks had been hit by a
cyberattack of the kind that U.S. intelligence fears would precede a Russian
attack.
“It cannot be excluded that the aggressor is resorting to
dirty tricks,” Ukraine’s communications watchdog said, in reference to Russia.
Peskov denied that Moscow had any role in the cyberattack.
“We do not know anything. As expected, Ukraine continues
blaming Russia for everything,” he said.
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