Tanks are seen on a freight train shortly after its arrival at a railway station in the Russian southern town of Matveev Kurgan, near the Russian-Ukrainian border in Rostov region, Russia, May 26, 2015. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Reuters/Maria Tsvetkova
Max Fisher, VOX: Is Russia about to invade Ukraine?
Russia is massing troops and hundreds of pieces of heavy military equipment, such as tanks and artillery, along Ukraine's border. That's according to Reuters reporter Maria Tsvetkova, who saw and took photos of the deployments on Wednesday. The same day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a think tank audience in Washington that Russia had deployed 250 aircraft and 700 pieces of heavy military equipment to the Ukrainian border as part of a military exercise.
Is this the start of another Russian invasion of Ukraine? Disturbingly, Tsvetkova reports that "many of the vehicles have number plates and identifying marks removed while many of the servicemen had taken insignia off their fatigues."
Update: Exclusive: Russia masses heavy firepower on border with Ukraine - witness -- Reuters
WNU Editor: Ukraine is certainly preparing for a summer war .... and are deploying the forces to conduct them .... Poroshenko says Ukraine brings troop numbers to 50,000 in Donbas (Kyiv Post). Also .... low-intensity fighting has been the norm in much of eastern Ukraine .... escalating this low-intensity conflict into something bigger would not take much time or encouragement. But as to the question .... will Russia invade and/or spark another major escalating in the fighting .... I do not see that in play right now. Intimidate and scare Kiev .... Russia is doing that .... but actually launching a fulls scale invasion .... the military resources are just not there. Deploy 200,000 soldiers and call up another 200,000 reservists .... followed by the deployment of air force and attack helicopter units to bases near the Ukraine border .... that is when I will say that a major war is about to happen. But that is not happening now.