KIEV, December 22 (Reuters) – Ukrainian armed forces carried out tactical exercises with American anti-tank missiles Javelin in an area of conflict with the Sparatists in eastern Ukraine amid tensions with Russia, said Wednesday the Ukrainian television channel Dom.
Ukraine, which is seeking to join NATO, has received a series of shipments of American munitions and Javelin missiles since 2018, arousing Moscow’s ire.
While Kiev accuses Moscow of assembling tens of thousands of soldiers for a possible offensive, Moscow denies having planned any assault and accuses Ukraine and the United States of having a destabilizing behavior, asking for security guarantees. against NATO’s eastward expansion, and claiming to be ready to respond to any Western aggression.
Senior Ukrainian security official Oleksiy Danilov said on Wednesday 122,000 Russian troops were 200 km from the border with Ukraine.
He told Reuters last week that Russia would need at least 500,000 600,000 troops at the border “to keep the situation under control in the event of an offensive,” but it would take more than 24 hours to bring in enough troops. in this area to prepare for an invasion.
NATO will propose a NATO-Russia Council meeting as soon as possible during 2022 in order to establish a “serious” dialogue with Moscow, declared Tuesday the secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance during a press conference in Brussels. (Report Pavel Polityuk; with the contribution of Alexander Marrow Moscow, French version Dina Kartit, said by Matthieu Protard)