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Nato commander warns of 'very, very sizeable and very, very ready' mass of Russia troops on Ukrainian border
Crimea crisis: Nato commander calls for allies to mobilise in eastern Europe after Russia prepares "incredible force" on Ukrainian border
(about 1 hour later)
NATO's top military commander said on Sunday that Russia had a large force on Ukraine's eastern border and he was worried it could pose a threat to Moldova's separatist Transdniestria region.
Nato's top military commander has warned that Russia is building an "incredible force" on its border with Ukraine, and said the time has come for Western allies to move its own troops to the east.
The warning comes a day after Russian troops, using armoured vehicles, automatic weapons and stun grenades, seized the last military facilities under Ukrainian control in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsular that Russian President Vladimir Putin formally annexed on Friday.
There are growing fears that President Vladimir Putin may be preparing to follow up the annexation of Crimea with a move into Moldova's mainly Russian-speaking separatist Transdniestria.
"The (Russian) force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready," NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, told an event held by the German Marshall Fund think-tank.
US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, Nato's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said Russia had used "snap" military exercises apparently as a tactic to shift vast numbers of troops towards the border.
Russia's seizure of Crimea, which has a majority Russian population, after the ousting of Ukraine's pro-Russian president by mass protests has triggered the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.
Around 10 days ago Moscow launched a new exercise, involving 8,500 artillery troops, near the Ukrainian border - as it had done in the days before Ukraine lost the Crimea region.
The United States and the European Union have targeted some of Putin's closest political and business allies with personal sanctions and have threatened broader economic sanctions if Putin's forces encroach on other eastern or southern parts of Ukraine with big Russian-speaking populations.
Breedlove said the Russian tactic should lead the 28-nation Western military alliance to rethink the positioning and readiness of its forces in eastern Europe so that they were ready to counter Moscow's moves.
Breedlove said NATO was very concerned about the threat to Transdniestria, which declared independence from Moldova in 1990 but has not been recognised by any United Nations member state. About 30 percent of its half million population is ethnic Russian, which is the mother tongue of an overall majority.
"A snap exercise puts an incredible force at a border. The force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready," he said, speaking at an event held by the German Marshall Fund, a thinktank.
Russia launched a new military exercise, involving 8,500 artillery men, near Ukraine's border 10 days ago.
"You cannot defend against that if you are not there to defend against it. So I think we need to think about our allies, the positioning of our forces in the alliance and the readiness of those forces ... such that we can be there to defend against it if required, especially in the Baltics and other places."
"There is absolutely sufficient (Russian) force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Transdniestria if the decision was made to do that, and that is very worrisome," Breedlove said.
Ukraine is not a Nato member, but Moscow's intervention in Crimea has caused particular alarm in several ex-Soviet Baltic republics - which are.
The president of ex-Soviet Moldova warned Russia last Tuesday against considering any move to annex Transdniestria, which lies on Ukraine's western border, in the same way that it has taken control of Crimea.
Breedlove said Nato had attempted to make Russia a partner, but added: "Now it is very clear that Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a partner."
The speaker of Transdniestria's parliament had urged Russia earlier to incorporate the region.
He voiced concern that Russia could have Transdniestria in its sights after Crimea, saying that, in Russia's view, the separatist region of Moldova was the "next place where Russian-speaking people may need to be incorporated."
Russia's Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov was quoted by the state's Itar-Tass news agency on Sunday as saying that Russia was complying with international agreements limiting the number of troops near its border with Ukraine.
In Moscow, Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said Russia was complying with international troop limits near the border with Ukraine, and international inspectors had conducted missions in the last month to check on Russian troop movements.
Moscow's ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, also told Britain's BBC television on Sunday that Russia did not have any "expansionist views".
"We have nothing to hide there," Antonov was quoted by the state RIA and Itar-Tass news agencies as saying.
Asked to give a commitment that Russian troops would not move into other Ukrainian territory outside the Crimea, Chizhov said: "There is no intention of the Russian Federation to do anything like that."
And speaking this morning on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Moscow's ambassador to the EU said his country did not have any "expansionist views", and that "nobody should fear Russia".
U.S. Senator John McCain, a Republican foreign policy specialist, told the same BBC show that Putin's actions in Ukraine were akin to those of Adolf Hitler in 1930s Germany.
Asked whether he could rule out a military incursion into Ukraine beyond the Crimea, Vladimir Chizhov said it was not Russia's "intention", but added that he could not speak for "the Commander in Chief".
"I think he (Putin) is calculating how much he can get away with, just as Adolf Hitler calculated how much he could get away with in the 1930s," McCain said.
McCain criticised the international response and said he supported sending military equipment to Ukraine. He also said he considered Moldova and the Baltic nations, all former Soviet states with sizeable Russian populations, to be under threat.
U.S. President Barack Obama's national security adviser said on Friday that the world was reassessing its relationship with Russia and Washington was sceptical of Russian assurances that troop movements on the Ukraine border were no more than military exercises.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia, accepted on Sunday that Crimea was now "de facto" a part of Russia, but he criticised the annexation as a "bad precedent".
Speaking to reporters in Minsk, Lukashenko said Ukraine, which shares a long land border with Belarus, should remain "a single, indivisible, integral, non-bloc state".
Hopes that the limited sanctions measures in place might dissuade further incursions were dealt a blow on Sunday when Russia's SMP bank, whose main shareholders were targeted by U.S. sanctions, said Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc had resumed payment services for its clients.
The bank said it was glad the two biggest international payments systems had listened to its arguments to reverse Friday's suspension of services as it was wrong to target the bank, which was not itself the target of any sanctions.
Putin and Russian media had mocked the sanctions, which did not stop the Russian military completing its takeover of Ukraine's military bases in Crimea.
Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday that its flag was now flying over 189 Ukrainian military installations on the peninsula.
A referendum held a week ago after Russian troops had seized control of Crimea overwhelmingly backed union with Russia but was denounced by Washington and the European Union as a sham.
The EU emphasised its support for the new pro-Western government in Kiev, signing a political agreement with interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk last week.
They also promised financial aid for the government - which Moscow says came to power by a coup to overthrow Russian ally Viktor Yanukovich - as soon as Kiev reaches a deal with the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF is to report next Tuesday on advanced talks with Ukraine on a loan programme that would be linked to far-reaching reforms of the shattered economy.
Three months of protests were set off by Yanukovich's refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU, the political part of which was signed on Friday.
