Freitag, 28. Januar 2022

Where Military Forces Are Assembling Around Russia and Ukraine

 

Where Military Forces Are Assembling Around Russia and Ukraine

28. Januar 2022

The U.S. raised the alarm with European allies in November about what it said was a buildup of Russian forces near the border with Ukraine that intelligence reports said may exceed 100,000 troops. It warned that a three-pronged move into Ukraine might take place from Southern Russia, Crimea and Belarus.

Russia denies any plans to invade Ukraine, saying the forces are on routine maneuvers. But it has warned Kyiv against making any military move against the separatist regions Moscow backs in the Donbas area. Russia also accused the U.S. and NATO allies of stoking tensions with naval exercises in the Black Sea. Ukraine denies it plans an assault.

Forces in Eastern Europe and Ukrainian Border

Soldiers, tanks, artillery and air defense are at multiple sites

Russian military positions and

temporary sites

Locations of NATO troops

ESTONIA

More than

100,000

Russian troops

massed near

Ukraine border

4,000 NATO

troops led by

U.K., Canada

and Germany

LATVIA

Moscow

LITHUANIA

Minsk

RUSSIA

BELARUS

35,000

U.S. troops

4,500

U.S. troops

GERMANY

POLAND

Kyiv

UKRAINE

Rebel controlled area

Luhansk

Donetsk

Mariupol

1,000 U.S.

ROMANIA

The Crimean Peninsula is Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia in 2014

2,500 U.S.

Black Sea

200 mi

BULGARIA

200 km

Note: Locations in Belarus include drills scheduled Feb 10–20.
Sources: Bloomberg; Janes; Belarus Defense Ministry; Rochan Consulting; NATO

Calling the alliance a threat, Russia has demanded NATO accept no more new members in Europe’s east, deploy no offensive weapons that it sees as threatening and pull back its infrastructure to where it was in 1997, before the former Soviet allies and republics joined.

The U.S. and NATO have rejected those demands, saying the bloc is defensive, offering instead talks on limiting missile deployments and military maneuvers in the region.

The Soviet Union’s withdrawal from its eastern European satellite states after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall ended decades of Cold War military confrontation in Europe. NATO expanded in response to appeals from former Warsaw Pact members to be admitted into the military alliance and ensure Europe-wide security.

NATO Neighbors

Russia sees the eastward expansion of the alliance as a threat

Joined NATO:

Prior to 1999

Since 1999

Aspirant NATO member

Extent of Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact alliance, 1989

Atlantic

Ocean

EST.

RUSSIA

LAT.

LITH.

BELARUS

POLAND

GERMANY

CZECH

REP.

UKRAINE

SLOVAK.

HUN.

ROM.

BOS.

GEORGIA

Black Sea

BUL.

Note: In 1955, West Germany joined NATO and East Germany the Warsaw Pact; reunited Germany became a NATO member in 1990. Czechoslovakia, the predecessor of Czech Republic and Slovakia, was a Warsaw Pact member.
Source: NATO

A NATO summit in April 2008 declared that membership is open to Ukraine and Georgia once they meet the necessary conditions, despite objections from Russian President Vladimir Putin. While neither has moved much closer to joining the alliance since then, Putin’s demands that they never do so is a main source of tension.

The U.S. is marshalling allies to threaten painful economic sanctions on Russia if it does invade Ukraine, but there is disagreement on how severe those measures should be. NATO members have also stepped up supplies of defensive weapons to Ukraine, whose army is much smaller and weaker than Russia’s. Though the U.S. has said it wouldn’t send troops to defend Ukraine, which isn’t in NATO, the Biden administration put as many as 8,500 soldiers on heightened alert for deployment to bolster alliance members in Eastern Europe if needed.

Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen

argy 9.7.2025

  Die Reserven der Zentralbank sanken aufgrund von Anleihezahlungen um mehr als 2,5 Milliarden US-Dollar Diese Woche zahlte das Finanzminist...