Putin’s battle groups muster minutes from Ukraine border

Independent Russian investigators say troops and military hardware have been spotted barely 40km from Ukraine.

Russian troops were reported on Friday to have deployed to a camp in Belarus barely 40km from the Ukrainian border.

The Conflict Intelligence Team, a group of independent Russian investigators, said the troops and military hardware had been spotted in Rechitsa, in the Gomel region.

Russia has amassed about 100,000 soldiers in areas near the Ukrainian border but insists it does not intend to invade. It said earlier it had sent forces to Belarus, its ally, for joint military exercises. CIT said, however, that none of the training grounds where the drills were scheduled to take place was in the Gomel region.

The “combat readiness” stage of the drills will continue until February 9, the Russian defence ministry said, with the exercises themselves taking place from February 10 to 20.

Fears of an invasion grew this month when NATO rejected Russia’s demand that it rule out eastwards expansion.

The alliance also refused to withdraw its forces from former Soviet Union states, or give a guarantee that Ukraine would never become a NATO member.

The Russian defence ministry said this week that it would deploy 12 Su-35 jet fighters and S-400 and Pantsir air defence systems to ­Belarus for the drills. Unconfirmed reports said that elements of a BM-27 Uragan rocket artillery launcher had also been sent.

Upping the ante, Russia announced new naval drills that will see it deploy to the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and Mediterranean “more than 140 warships and support vessels, more than 60 aircraft, 1000 pieces of military equipment, and about 10,000 servicemen”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is due to meet Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in Geneva on Friday night, urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to stay on a “diplomatic and peaceful path”.

His words will be given weight by the arrival of USS Georgia, a guided-missile submarine, in the eastern Mediterranean.

Formerly a nuclear deterrent ballistic-missile boat, it has been adapted to carry more than 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles. It also has space onboard for US Navy SEALS.

The US Navy has not specified where exactly the submarine is stationed, but the Lieutenant General Evangelos Florakis base in Mari, not far from Limassol, ­Cyprus, seems likely.

Tomahawk missiles have a range of more than 1600km, easily enough to reach several potential military targets in Russia or eastern Ukraine.

The USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier battle group is also being kept in the eastern Mediterranean to reassure NATO allies in the region.

The stand-off comes eight years after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, going on to provide military support for a pro-Moscow separatist movement in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

More than 14,000 people have been killed in fighting in the coalmining region since 2014.

The Times