United States urged Russia to respond to military concentration in eastern Ukraine causing instability

The spokesperson for the US Department of Defense, John Kirby, asked Russia to respond “to the world” on “what they are doing, with what forces, with what capacities and what their intentions are” in eastern Ukraine, where “military concentration only causes instability and further insecurity”.

Kirby said this after many questions about a concentration of Russian military personnel in the Crimea and along the Russian border with Ukraine, to which he also replied that “these are excellent questions to ask (the Minister of Defense Sergey) Shoygu in Moscow ”.

White House officials ranked Russian “military growth” in the region as “the largest since 2014,” and many countries have asked Russia for “an explanation,” “receiving weak responses on training or training. exercises, ”he noted.

Kirby said he didn’t think the Russians “had been completely transparent about what they were doing” and he did not want to detail the scope of the Russian concentration, although he did specify that it was in Crimea, still part of Ukraine and along the eastern border.

On the other hand, the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken spoke with his French and German counterparts on Friday about “the importance of supporting Ukraine against unilateral Russian provocations along the” line of contact “in the east of the country.

In calls with the German Heiko Maas and the French Jean-Yves Le Drian, Blinken addressed the “need for Russia to immediately cease its military reinforcement and its inflammatory rhetoric”.

Likewise, the talks stressed the need to end “its military concentration” in the region, thus confirming its “unwavering support for the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine”.

Ukrainian authorities have criticized Russia in recent days for the deployment of the army in an area near the common border, which has been rejected by Moscow, which argues that it can move its soldiers to its territory without restrictions.

Conflicts in the region have continued for years due to tensions between Ukraine and Russia. In the case of Crimea, Russia annexed this territory during the 2014 conflict with Ukraine before the population decided to incorporate it in a referendum while the Donbass region has known for years an armed conflict between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian separatists.

The Minsk Accords, signed in September 2014 and February 2015, laid the foundations for a political solution to the conflict, but so far have not led to an end to the violence. Hostilities have so far claimed at least 13,000 lives, according to UN estimates.

(With information from Europa Press)

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