Russia Builds Military Strength On Ukraine's Borders, NATO Issues Warning

NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg. (Wikimedia Commons/US Department of State)

JAKARTA - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Russia on Monday that the Western military alliance stands near Ukraine amid the large and unusual concentration of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.

Stressing that what is important now is to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control, Stoltenberg urged Russia to be transparent about military activities, to reduce tensions and prevent escalation.

"We have to be clear, we have to be realistic about the challenges we face. And what we are seeing is a significant and huge increase in the Russian military," Stoltenberg said at a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Brussels.

He said he did not want to speculate on Russia's intentions, but added: "We are seeing an unusual concentration of troops, and we know that Russia has used this type of military capability before to carry out aggressive actions against Ukraine."

The movement of Russian troops over the past few days has fueled fears of a possible attack. Moscow has rejected accusations such as inciting and complaining about increased activity in the region by the NATO transatlantic alliance.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and says the waters around it belong to Moscow now, although most countries continue to recognize the peninsula as Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russian-backed separatists took control of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine that same year, with military casualties on both sides continuing to fall as a result of the conflict in the region.

The build-up of border troops, which Ukraine estimated last week at 100,000, is dangerous, Stoltenberg said, because it reduces the number of warning times, if Russia decides to "take aggressive military action against Ukraine."

"This is partly the troops that are close to the border between Russia and Ukraine, but also part of the troops and capabilities that are inside Ukraine, which means they are in Crimea, which is illegally annexed, and also we see the militants, the separatists in the Donbass, who are also is part of Ukraine, supported and assisted by Russia," he said.

Separately, a NATO source, who was asked to explain how Russia will deploy its military equipment to Ukraine, said: "Large equipment such as tanks, self-propelled artillery and infantry fighting vehicles were moved at night to avoid the images appearing on social media. media as they did during the Russian military build-up in the spring."

"It could go well," Lithuania's foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters, also on Monday, on the sidelines of a meeting with his European Union counterparts.

The West cannot exclude Russia's attack on Ukraine, while international attention is focused on the Belarusian migration crisis, or that Russia is establishing a permanent military presence in Belarus, he said.

"I would not exclude that as a possibility," he stressed.