Where Military Forces Are Assembling Around Russia and Ukraine Published: 28. Januar 2022 | Updated: 11. Februar 2022

 

Maxar Technologies captured satellite imagery of tents and troop housing at the Kursk training area in Russia on Feb. 9. Photographer: Maxar Technologies

Where Military Forces Are Assembling Around Russia and Ukraine

Published: 28. Januar 2022 | Updated: 11. Februar 2022

U.S. intelligence suggests Russia may attack Ukraine as early as next week, before the Winter Olympics in Beijing end on Feb. 20, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Russia denies it has any plans to invade. Still, the Pentagon is sending an additional 3,000 troops to Poland, according to a U.S. defense official, and President Biden has urged Americans to leave Ukraine as soon as possible.

Russia and Belarus are currently holding their biggest joint military drills in years. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said there may be 30,000 Russian troops in Belarus for the drills, which run to Feb. 20. Some of the exercises occur near the border with Ukraine, as well as near the borders of Poland and Lithuania, both NATO members. The U.S. and NATO estimate as many as 130,000 Russian troops are amassed near the Ukrainian border.

Russian Presence in Belarus

Scheduled drills are being held Feb. 10–20

Russian military positions and

temporary sites

BELARUS

Minsk

RUSSIA

Gomel

Rechytsa

Zyabrovka airfield

is 15 miles (24 km)

from Ukraine’s border

Kyiv

100 mi

UKRAINE

100 km

▼ Troop housing area and battle group vehicle park at Rechytsa, Belarus on Feb. 9

▼ Armored vehicle deployments at the Zyabrovka airfield near Gomel in Belarus, on Feb. 10

Note: Locations of closest urban areas shown on map

Sources: Belarus Defense Ministry, satellite imagery by Maxar Technologies

The NATO military alliance is reinforcing its defensive presence in eastern member states—including in the Black Sea region—in response to the tensions over Ukraine, Stoltenberg said Friday. Russia has moved six landing ships to the Black Sea to join naval drills planned for Feb. 13-19.

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

130,000

Russian troops

massed near

Ukraine border

4,000 NATO

troops led by

U.K., Canada

and Germany

LATVIA

Moscow

LITHUANIA

Minsk

RUSSIA

BELARUS

9,200

U.S. troops

POLAND

Kyiv

34,300

U.S. troops

205,000

Ukrainian

troops

Rebel controlled area

UKRAINE

GERMANY

Luhansk

Donetsk

1,900 U.S.

ROMANIA

6 Russian landing

ships undertaking drills

Black Sea

2,500 U.S.

200 mi

The Crimean Peninsula is Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia in 2014

BULGARIA

200 km

Sources: Bloomberg; Janes; Russian Defense Ministry; Belarus Defense Ministry; Rochan Consulting; NATO; U.S. Department of Defense; U.K. Ministry of Defense; Ukraine National Institute for Strategic Studies

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.

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Russia Starts Military Drills in Belarus as NATO Watches 

Why Russia-Ukraine Tensions Are So Hard to Defuse 

Europe Faces Harsh Reality of Finding Russian Gas Irreplaceable 

Maxar Technologies captured satellite imagery of troops, tents and equipment at the Oktyabrskoye in Crimea, on Feb. 10.

Photographer: Maxar Technologies

Calling the alliance a threat, Russia has demanded binding security guarantees that NATO accept no more new members in Europe’s east, deploy no offensive weapons that Moscow 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. Despite objections from Russia, 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 neede