Blinken on pulling Russian troops to the border with Ukraine: If Russia starts to act aggressively

• In 2014, immediately after the annexation of Crimea, Russia launched an armed aggression in eastern Ukraine. The fighting is between the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the one hand and the Russian army and Russian-backed militants who control parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the other. Officially, the Russian Federation does not recognize its invasion of Ukraine, despite the facts and evidence presented by Ukraine.
• July 22, 2020 Trilateral Contact Group agreed the regime a complete and comprehensive ceasefire in the Donbas since midnight on 27 July.
• At the beginning of 2021, the situation in Donbass worsened. The Joint Forces operation headquarters has repeatedly reported that the enemy is firing sniper fire. In February, the first president of Ukraine, the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the trilateral contact group on the settlement of the conflict in Donbass, Leonid Kravchuk, said, what “there is simply no truce “.
• On April 1, the Office of the President of Ukraine reported that from the beginning of 2021 the Russian occupation troops in the Donbas violated the ceasefire more than 570 times… President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on April 6 that since the beginning of the July truce in Donbass killed 28 Ukrainian soldiers, of which 23 – from the beginning of the current year.
• In late March – early April, the media and eyewitnesses began to publish video evidence that Russia was actively transfers military equipment to Crimea across the Kerch Bridge and pulls troops to the border with Ukraine (according to American officials, the Russian Federation could transfer to the border about 4 thousand servicemen).
• On March 30, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Ruslan Khomchak confirmed that the Russian Federation builds up troops near the border with Ukraine and in the occupied Crimea, which “poses a threat to the military security of the state.” Ukrainian intelligence said that Russia wants to expand military presence on the territory controlled by the “DPR” and “LPR” militants through the introduction of regular units of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and did not rule out an attempt to move Russian troops deep into the territory of Ukraine.
• According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba, the current escalation by the Russian Federation in Donbass is systemic and the most ambitious in recent years.
• Due to the escalation of the situation in Donbass, the US command in Europe announced maximum availability… According to the White House, the number of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine is largest since 2014.
• Reuters interlocutors in the Kremlin stated that it was a show of forcerather than preparing for large-scale action. Former commander of the American army in Europe Ben Hodges suggests that pulling in troops can be a “posturing of Russia” and a “test” of the administration new US President Joe Biden.

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