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As all eyes are on the current humanitarian crisis on the Belarus-Poland border with thousands of asylum seekers trying to enter the EU, the US and the UK have warned Russia could be plotting an invasion of Ukraine. A British defence source said: “The anxiety is because we don’t know what’s going to happen.
“It is an unpredictable situation.”
Russia has denied all claims of possible conflict and said its military presence near the Ukrainian border was only a reaction to increased activity by the NATO transatlantic alliance in the region.
“Such headlines do nothing more than pointlessly and groundlessly fuel tensions,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“Russia does not pose a threat to anyone,” he added.
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, reports Reuters.
“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 speech on Wednesday.
The UK is ready to intervene to help Ukraine if the conflict escalates as 600 British troops from the Special Air Service (SAS) and the Parachute Regiment have been warned they could be sent to the country within hours.
The Sunday Mirror reports that defence chiefs and the head of MI6 advised No10 that Russian President Vladimir Putin represents a clear and present danger to Ukraine and the West.
READ MORE: World War 3 fears: US says Russia making ‘serious mistake’ with troops
Tony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said: “We don’t have clarity into Moscow’s intentions, but we do know its playbook, and our concern is that Russia may make the serious mistake of attempting to rehash what it undertook back in 2014.
“We are concerned with the reports of the unusual Russian activity near Ukraine.
“We’re looking at this very, very closely.
“We’re also consulting very closely with allies and partners.”
A Pentagon spokesman said the troop movement by Russia was “unusual in its size and scope” and added: “We urge Russia to be clear about their intentions.”
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