West fears Ukraine invasion as Russia launches Belarus military drills

Tensions rose after Russia and Belarus began joint military exercises on Thursday, which made it even more important for NATO leaders to try to stop a possible invasion of Ukraine through talks. The war drills, which will last until February 20, are the latest flashpoint between Russia and the West over Ukraine. Kyiv called the moves “psychological pressure” right away. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the exercises “a very violent gesture.” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss accused Russia of trying to “undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty” during a visit to Moscow. Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the build-up was a dangerous time for European security because it could lead to war.

Russia might escalate Eastern Ukraine Conflict

Warnings from Western leaders have been coming out for weeks that Russia might be preparing to get more involved in an eight-year separatist conflict in east Ukraine after building up more than a million troops around the country that was once a part of the USSR. Some 30,000 Russian troops are going to Ukraine’s next-door neighbor, Belarus, for the exercises that began on Thursday.

Video from the Russian Defense Ministry shows columns of Russian missile systems rolling across snow-covered fields on the eve of the drills. Russia has also sent six warships through the Bosphorus for naval drills in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, which is next to it. Kyiv said that their presence was an “unprecedented” move to cut off Ukraine from both the seas. It’s not clear how many troops are taking part in the military exercises in Belarus.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the goal of the exercises is to learn how to stop and fight off outside aggression with a defensive operation. The Kremlin has said that the Russian troops in Belarus will leave after the exercises are over. There are a lot of troops at the border, but Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says that’s “psychological pressure from our neighbors.” It looks like Ukraine has started its own military drills that are supposed to look like Russia’s games in Belarus. Officials haven’t talked about them because they don’t want to make things worse.

Diplomatic talks between Russia, Ukraine, and other Countries

Talks between Russian, Western, and Ukrainian officials have been going on for a long time now because of the crisis. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said he had gotten a promise from Vladimir Putin that Russia “would not be the source of an escalation” because of those efforts. Among other things, Russia has asked the United States and the NATO military alliance led by Washington to reduce their involvement in eastern Europe and the countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

In the last few days, a British diplomat named Ms. Truss has been in Moscow to find out what Russia thinks. Her counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, was told by Truss that Britain “cannot ignore” Russia’s troop buildup or “attempts to undermine the sovereignty of Ukraine.” If you don’t want war and bloodshed, you can take a diplomatic route, she says. “I am here to tell Russia that they should go that way,” I say. Mr. Lavrov said that threats from the West would not help calm down the situation in Ukraine.

Using ideology, ultimatums, and threats is the way to go nowhere, Mr. Lavrov told the crowd. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the German leader, was told about Macron’s progress in Berlin by Ms. Truss just a few days ago. In the next few days, the German chancellor will travel to Kyiv and Moscow for separate meetings with the leaders of Ukraine and Russia. This will be his first meeting with Vladimir Putin in person.

In Berlin on Thursday, Mr. Scholz will meet with Baltic leaders who will be there. Before he goes to Poland to meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet with NATO officials. It was John Kirby’s job to tell people that Putin has been sending troops to the border all week. There has been a steady flow of ammunition from the United States to Ukraine. The tenth shipment was delivered by a military cargo plane on Wednesday night.

Officials in Ukraine have used more cautious language to describe the threat from the Russian build-up and how soon it could happen. She said Wednesday that Russian troops on the border were mostly used for “political pressure and blackmail.” Fighting between Kyiv’s army and separatists who are backed by Russia has killed more than 14,000 people since 2014. It started a few weeks after Russia took over Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, which started a wave of economic penalties from the West. If Russia does this again, the United States and the European Union say they will keep increasing the penalties.