The world is on the brink of a major war and it has raised concern among citizens globally. The United States has heightened the readiness of some 8,500 U.S. troops amid tensions between Russia and NATO over a potential invasion of Ukraine.
Out of these, NATO has about 4,000 troops in multinational battalions in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, backed by tanks, air defences and intelligence and surveillance units.
Russia as per western media has gathered tens of thousands of troops on its borders with Ukraine and the fear Moscow is planning a new assault on a country it invaded in 2014 to annex the Crimean peninsula, have grown tremendously in the west.
Russia has categorically denied the reports of invasion and said that “Our troops on the border…These troops are not a threat, they are a warning. A warning to Ukraine’s rulers not to attempt any reckless military adventure.”
“We don’t intend to invade at all,” Pavlovsky Russian Ambassador to Asutralia told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he would consider personal sanctions on President Vladimir Putin if Russia invades Ukraine, as Western leaders stepped up military preparations and made plans to shield Europe from a potential energy supply shock.
Background:
Ukraine was part of the Russian empire for centuries. It won independence when the USSR broke up in 1991. Ukraine moved to shed Russia and forge increasingly close ties with the Western world.
Russia in 2014 annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Meanwhile, the western world also accused Russia of throwing its weight behind a separatist rebellion that broke out in Ukraine’s east.
The West says that Russia of sending its troops and weapons to back the rebels, a claim denied by Moscow.
According to Ukraine, more than 14,000 people have died in the fighting that devastated Ukraine’s industrial heartland.
Russia has strongly denounced the US and its NATO allies for providing Ukraine with weapons and holding joint drills, saying that such moves encourage Ukraine to capture areas by force.
In its list of security demands put to the US last December, one of the primary demands was to halt NATO drills near Russia’s border. The demands and ultimatums have been slammed as non-starters by the West.
The Russian president, Putin said Russia would seek a guarantee that would exclude any further NATO moves eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that cause threat in close vicinity to Russian territory.