Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said there are nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers near Ukraine’s border and that Western countries had shared information about active Russian troop movements with Kyiv. Reuters stated:
“I hope the whole world can now clearly see who really wants peace and who is concentrating nearly 100,000 soldiers at our border,” he said in a video of a speech on Wednesday carried on his website.
The Russian troop movements near the Ukrainian border have spurred fears of a possible attack. Moscow has dismissed such suggestions as inflammatory and complained about increasing activity in the region by the NATO transatlantic alliance.
The Times of Israel reported that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed Western media reports that Moscow has intentions to invade Ukraine as a “hollow and unfounded attempt to incite tensions.” “Russia doesn’t threaten anyone,” Peskov said during a conference call with reporters.
“The movement of troops on our territory shouldn’t be a cause for anyone’s concern,” Ukraine complained last week that Russia has kept tens of thousands of troops not far from the two countries’ borders after conducting war games in an attempt to exert further pressure on its ex-Soviet neighbor. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has supported a separatist insurgency that broke out that year in eastern Ukraine.
