par Dmitry Antonov, John Irish et Robin Emmott
MOSCOW / PARIS (Reuters) – The United States has expressed concerns to its European allies over potentially suspicious Russian troop movements on the Ukrainian border, which could suggest preparations for a possible offensive, four diplomats said on Friday to Reuters.
Russia categorically denied such a scenario and accused the United States of aggressive maneuvers in the Black Sea area.
According to European diplomats interviewed by Reuters, US officials raised the threat of an attack on Ukraine during a meeting in Brussels with European counterparts. Two of them said the comments were made on Wednesday at a meeting of ambassadors to the Atlantic Alliance.
They did not give more details on the American argument, nor on the data put forward to support their concerns.
Another diplomatic source told Reuters that Karen Donfried, Deputy Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, recounted her recent trip to Moscow and underlined her concern over events on the eastern border of Ukraine at a meeting of the Council of Ukraine. the North Atlantic, NATO’s main political decision-making body, last week.
The Washington Post had reported on October 30 movements of Russian troops and equipment considered worrying by Americans and Europeans. Bloomberg had reported Thursday of American fears on this subject.
“Such headlines do nothing more than fuel tensions unnecessarily and without basis. Russia is not threatening anyone,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on a conference call on Friday.
He recalled that Russia was the sole decision maker in the deployment of its troops on its own territory.
“We have repeatedly said that the movements of our troops within our borders should not cause concern,” he said.
DRILL OR ATTEMPTED AT INCURSION?
In Brussels, a spokesperson for the European Commission said at a press briefing on Friday that Europeans continued to monitor developments, adding that the information gathered so far was “rather worrying”.
For his part, the Russian Defense Minister reported having detected six flights of NATO spy planes in the airspace above the Black Sea, in what he described as a intensification of aerial reconnaissance by Western forces.
The Russian military also said it was tracking the movements of US Navy ships in the Black Sea.
“We consider the aggressive military activity of the United States in the Black Sea region as a threat to regional security and strategic stability,” the Russian army observed in a statement.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and now claims ownership of the territorial waters bathing this peninsula still recognized as Ukrainian by most countries.
Quoted by the Tass agency, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in Paris with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks with their French counterparts, said it was important to work with France to de-escalate Ukraine.
“The Russian pattern at work is different from what we have seen before,” said a source at NATO. “At this point, it is unclear whether these military movements are aimed at an incursion into Ukraine or if it is just an exercise.”
Tensions in the region are already high because of the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border, orchestrated by Minsk according to the Europeans, who are preparing new sanctions against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko.
The Kremlin’s support for the Belarusian president has not waned since his disputed re-election in August 2020 and the defense ministries of both countries announced the holding of parachute maneuvers in western Belarus near from the border with Poland.
(Report Dimitri Antonov, John Chalmers, John Irish and Robin Emmott, French version Myriam Rivet and Sophie Louet, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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