March 13, 2014
Russia Massing Military Forces Near Border With Ukraine
Steven Lee Myers and Alison Smale
New York Times
March 13, 2014
MOSCOW — Russia’s Defense Ministry announced new military operations in several regions near the Ukrainian border on Thursday, even as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany warned the Kremlin to abandon the politics of the 19th and 20th centuries or face diplomatic and economic retaliation from a united Europe.
The operations came as Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, saidin a statement on his official website that he believed Russian forces massed near the border were “ready to intervene in Ukraine at anytime,” and that he hoped diplomatic efforts by Ukraine and sympathetic nations would “stop the aggression.”
Underscoring the potential gravity of the troop movements, Russia’s senior commander, Valery V. Gerasimov, spoke by telephone with his NATO counterpart, Gen. Knud Bartles of Denmark, the news agency Interfax reported, citing a defense source. The details of the conversation were not disclosed.
In Moscow, the military acknowledged significant operations involving armored and airborne troops in the Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions abutting eastern Ukraine, where many ethnic Russians have protested against the new interim government in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, and appealed to Moscow for protection.
Russian Troops Hold Drills Near Ukraine
Russian troops held military exercises in several regions near the Ukrainian border early on Thursday amid heightened tension between Kiev and Moscow.
A day after a deputy minister denied any military buildup on the border, the Defense Ministry released a series of statements beginning early Thursday that appeared to contradict that. They outlined what was described as intensive training of units involving artillery batteries, assault helicopters and at least 10,000 soldiers.
The operations confirmed, at least in part, assertions by Ukrainian leaders on Wednesday that Russia was massing forces, as well as amateur photographs that appeared to show columns of armored vehicles and trucks in a border village called Lopan, only 30 miles from the Ukrainian city Kharkiv. One statement announced that another 1,500 paratroopers from Ivanovo, east of Moscow, had parachuted onto a military base in Rostov, not far from the Ukrainian cities Donetsk and Lugansk.
With NATO announcing its own deployments of fighter jets and exercises to countries on Ukraine’s western border, the crisis appeared to be worsening despite 11th-hour diplomatic efforts to halt a secession referendum scheduled for Sunday in Crimea. The ouster of the government of Viktor F. Yanukovych and Russia’s subsequent intervention in Crimea has deeply divided Russia and the West, and in Berlin, Ms. Merkel underscored the potential risks of what is being called the worst crisis in relations since the end of the Soviet Union.
Appearing before Parliament on Thursday, Ms. Merkel criticized Russia’s actions in some of her toughest language to date, declaring that “the territorial integrity of Ukraine cannot be called into question.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, if Russia continues on its course of the past weeks, it will not only be a catastrophe for Ukraine,” she said. “We, also as neighbors of Russia, would not only see it as a threat. And it would not only change the European Union’s relationship with Russia. No, this would also cause massive damage to Russia, economically and politically.”
As Russia’s largest trading partner in Europe, Germany is certain to have significant influence on the debate over how to respond to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Some politicians and observers in other European countries and in the United States have suggested that Germany’s traditionally close trading and other ties with Russia have made it hesitant to adopt sanctions against Russia.
Ms. Merkel’s speech, however, suggested that President Vladimir V. Putin might have miscalculated the anger the occupation and annexation of Crimea would cause – or that he might be impervious to it.
Mr. Putin, who has remained in Sochi to attend the Paralympics there, has so far showed no sign of bending to international criticism. In a meeting on Wednesday with
the directors of national Paralympic teams, he implicitly reiterated the Kremlin’s argument that the ouster of Mr. Yanukovych was an armed coup instigated by outside forces. “I would like to assure you that Russia was not the initiator of the circumstances we are now facing,” Mr. Putin said.
In her remarks, Ms. Merkel rejected any comparison between the situation in Crimea today and that in Kosovo in the late 1990s, when NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days to halt the attacks on Kosovo Albanians by Serbian forces.
Ms. Merkel was clear that Germany would go along with the other 27 states of the European Union, and the United States, if Russia did not open meaningful diplomatic talks and the West moved to freeze Russian accounts and impose travel bans or restrictions on leading Russian figures.
“To make it unmistakably clear,” she said, “nobody wants it to come to that.”
The chancellor recalled that on Nov. 18, before Mr. Yanukovych rejected an association agreement with the European Union, she had made clear that the proposed accord was not directed against Russia and did not represent a choice for Ukraine between the West and Moscow.
WHERE RUSSIAN TROOPS ARE MASSING
The Russian military acknowledged on Thursday significant operations involving armored and airborne troops near its border with Ukraine. Ukraine Crisis in Maps »
Belarus
Regions where Russian military operations were being carried out.
Tambov
Voronezh
Kursk
Russia
Belgorod
Kiev
Russian light infantry vehicles were seen in Lopan on Wednesday.
Kharkiv
Volgograd
UKRAINE
Luhansk
Donetsk
Rostov
1,500 paratroopers based in Ivanovo were flown to a training range in this region.
Mol.
Crimea
Black
Sea
Krasnodar
Regions where Russian military operations were being carried out.
Russian light infantry
vehicles were seen in
Lopan (Belgorod Region) on Wednesday.
1,500 paratroopers
based in Ivanovo were
flown to a training
range in the Rostov region.
On Thursday, she dwelled on the need for Russia to avoid what she predicted would be major damage to its interests by abandoning outdated geopolitics and adopting the 21st century language of mutual cooperation and interwoven globalization.
The possibility of sanctions has rattled Russia’s markets and currency, and while some of the country’s wealthiest tycoons have voiced concern, officials have responded to the threats defiantly, vowing to retaliate with sanctions of their own. “We are ready for any eventuality, working on all the options,” said Aleksei Y. Likhachyov, a deputy minister of economic development. “Our sanctions will naturally be symmetrical.”
As other leaders have, Ms. Merkel ruled out the use of force, but the military maneuvers on both sides underscored the risk of a far worse conflict over Ukraine’s fate. She referred obliquely to “worrisome developments” in eastern Ukraine, however.
The unrest there – though less violent than in Kiev – has raised fears that Russia could do what it did in Crimea. There local officials defied the central government in Kiev and declared independence, even as Russian special forces took control of airports and other important government facilities.
Like Ms. Merkel, her vice chancellor, the Social Democratic party leader Sigmar Gabriel, warned Moscow that even Germany would not hesitate to go beyond a second round of European sanctions that will be set in motion on Monday if the Crimean referendum goes ahead and Russia does not embrace diplomacy.
“Germany is doing everything to prevent a third round of sanctions against Russia,” Mr. Gabriel said, according to Reuters. But Europe should not hesitate, he added, if diplomacy failed.
For her part, Ms. Merkel assured reporters that the European Union would not flinch. “We are very rational, very calm and very much in accord,” she said after a meeting with the visiting Czech prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka.
Russia has not acknowledged the presence of additional forces in Crimea beyond those allowed by contract for the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, although officials and analysts have said they include Russia’s elite special operations troops. On March 1, Mr. Putin asked for and received authorization from Russia’s upper house of Parliament to order the use of the armed forces in Ukraine.
“The main aim of the ongoing activities is to check fully the teamwork of the units with subsequent combat training tasks on an unknown territory and untested ranges,” one of the Defense Ministry statements said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Parubiy, claimed that Russian forces near the border totaled more than 80,000 solders, 270 tanks, 370 artillery systems and 140 combat aircraft. “Ukraine today is facing the threat of a full-scale invasion from various directions,” he said.
Aleksandr Golts, an author and military analyst, noted that the operations were not training exercises like the huge one Mr. Putin ordered at the end of February that require notification of neighboring states under a series of conventional arms agreements.
He added that the operations were clearly intended as a warning of Russia’s readiness to intervene, if necessary, noting that the parachute drop was on a scale not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They also served to tie down Ukraine’s beleaguered military and prevent any effort to challenge the secession of Crimea.
“The goal is very clear: not to permit Ukrainian troops from moving toward Crimea,” he said. He later met with his national security council in Sochi.
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