Russia massing forces close to Ukraine

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The Pentagon has identified eight staging areas in Russia where large numbers of military forces appear to be preparing for incursions into Ukraine, according to U.S. defense officials.

As many as 40,000 Russian troops, including tanks, armored vehicles, and air force units, are now arrayed along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia.

Additionally, large numbers of Russian military forces will conduct exercises in the coming days that Pentagon officials say could be used as cover for an attack on Ukraine.

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Phillip Karber, a former U.S. arms control official who has traveled extensively in Ukraine war zones, identified several new military units at the eight locations, including up to two brigades of the newly established Russian First Guards Tank Army at Yelnya and Klintsy in the north, elements of the 20th Army located to the south of those units, and forces from the 49th Army deployed further south near Rostov.

“The fact that a full scale Russian invasion is still a plausible scenario after 30 months of conflict is an abject repudiation of an American policy of ‘leading from behind’ and West European fetish for trying to find ‘off-ramps’ that Putin hasn’t the slightest interest in taking,” said Karber, now head of the Potomac Foundation.

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