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UKRAINE has warned it could be “provoked” into action as tens of thousands of “battle ready” Russian troops close in on its border.
The West also now fears Vladimir Putin’s military squeeze on his neighbour may spark an all-out war which could drag Nato into the conflict.
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Russian tanks, missile trucks and long-range guns have been filmed heading to Crimea and the border of the disputed Ukrainian region of Donbass.
There were also reports Putin’s so-called robot army could soon be deployed to the flashpoint border.
Kiev estimates there are now 85,000 Russian troops between six and 25 miles from its frontier and in Crimea.
Ukraine’s government, led by President Volodymyr Zelensky, has accused Moscow of planning to invade Donbass, which has been occupied by Russian-backed separatists since 2014.
And Zelensky has slammed the Kremlin for inciting violence between Ukrainian troops and the pro-Russian rebels in his country.
However, Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration, said Kiev’s leaders were like “children playing with matches.”
He chillingly added any “military action… would be the beginning of the end of Ukraine.”
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Ukraine’s defence minister said on Saturday that his country could be “provoked” by Russian aggression pointing the finger of blame firmly at Putin and his Kremlin cronies.
“It should be noted the intensification of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is possible only if an appropriate political decision is made at the highest level in the Kremlin,” he said.
However, Moscow denies its troops are a threat, but says they will remain for as long as it sees fit.
Britain and the US are “firmly opposed” to Russia’s campaign to destabilise the region and called on Moscow to deescalate the situation, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said today.
“@SecBlinken (U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken) & I agreed Russia must immediately de-escalate the situation & live up to the international commitments that it signed up to at @OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe),” he said in a tweet.
And a Nato official told the Reuters news agency that Russia was undermining efforts to reduce tensions in eastern Ukraine.
“Allies share their concerns about Russia’s recent large-scale military activities in and around Ukraine,” the unnamed official said.
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A video leaked on Saturday captioned ‘Ready for conflict’ showed armoured vehicles moving through the mud and into position near the flashpoint border.
The chilling clip, thought to have been filmed by Russian soldiers, also shows a train convoy of military trucks moving within striking distance of Ukraine.
Satellite images then showed new Russian encampments and artillery batteries in the provinces of Voronezh and Krasnodar which lie to the east of Donbass.
At least six 2S4 Tyulpan self-propelled mortars – capable of firing warheads 12 miles – were filmed on a flatbed train in southwest Russia.
Dubbed the “city destroyer”, it is the largest mortar system in the world and has been used to demolish fortifications from Chechnya to Afghanistan.
On Friday, the Kremlin said it fears the return of full-scale fighting in eastern Ukraine and could take steps to protect Russian civilians there.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the situation was “very unstable” and risked leading to “full-scale combat operations”.
Ukraine’s military chief has dismissed Russian claims that the country’s armed forces are preparing for an attack on the rebel east.
Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists have been fighting in eastern Ukraine since shortly after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
More than 14,000 people have died in the conflict, and efforts to negotiate a political settlement have now stalled.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of sending in troops and weapons to help separatists – accusations that Moscow has denied.
The separatist authorities in Donetsk said 20 troops and two civilians have been killed this year.
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Western and Ukrainian officials have raised concerns in recent weeks about the Russian troop build-up along the border with Ukraine.
It comes after footage appeared to show a MiG-31 fighter jet intercepting a US RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft off the coast of Russia as tensions mount.
The concerns intensifed on Friday as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to his French and German counterparts.
The State Department said Blinken, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian discussed the need for Russia to cease its military build-up and heated rhetoric.
‘DANGEROUS ACTIONS’
During a call with Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for the removal of the troop reinforcements to a deescalate the situation.
And on Friday, a Turkey foreign ministry official said the US has notified Turkey that two US warships will sail to the Black Sea on April 14 and April 15 and stay there until May 4 and May 5.
“A notice was sent to us 15 days ago via diplomatic channels that two US warships would pass to the Black Sea, in line with the Montreux Convention. The ships will remain in the Black Sea until May 4,” Turkey’s foreign ministry said.
Putin, during a telephone conversation with Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, accused Ukraine of “dangerous provocative actions” in the Donbass region.
Speaking to Reuters, the Pentagon declined to discuss Turkey’s comments but said the military routinely sends ships to the region.
“That’s not anything new,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in Washington, referring to US military ships in the Black Sea.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko raised concerns over what he claimed was increasing Black Sea activity by powers that did not have a coast line in the region – an apparent reference to the US.
“The number of visits by NATO countries and the length of the stay of (their) warships have increased,” he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
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