Meanwhile, Kyiv and Washington’s top brass are sounding the alarm over the apparent build-up of Russian troops along Ukraine’s borders. Moscow maintains that these are routine military movements that “should not concern anyone.”
A recent and serious escalation of the situation in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas has become the topic of active discussion since March 26, when four Ukrainian servicemen were killed and two more were wounded near the village of Shumy in the Donetsk region. Kyiv stated that the soldiers were killed as a result of mortar shelling by Russian-backed forces from the unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR). The self-proclaimed authorities in Donetsk denied any involvement in shelling, maintaining that the Ukrainian soldiers were killed by a landmine.
According to The New York Times, last Friday’s “exchange of artillery and machine-gun fire in the Donetsk region was unusual in that it lasted most of a day.” But it wasn’t the first sign of a renewed increase in tension in eastern Ukraine: according to European observers, the Russian-backed side has also been seen with new weaponry in recent weeks.
“Unfortunately, since the start of 2021 we are observing a growing escalation,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky
confirmed on March 26. “That which was restored with such difficulty and bit by bit for almost a year can be destroyed in a second. The exacerbation of the situation is especially noticeable against the backdrop of the first months of the ceased fire ”
On March 30, the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Ruslan Khomchak, told the Ukrainian parliament that Russia is building up troops near Ukraine’s state borders in the north, east, and south, as well as “in Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories and in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.”
According to Khomchak, Russia is maintaining 28 battalion tactical groups along the border with Ukraine. He also added that Russia is building up troops under the pretext of conducting military exercises, and is expected to deploy an additional 25 battalion tactical groups near Ukraine’s borders. The Ukrainian parliament responded with a statement asserting the beginning of a new “escalation of the conflict’ and demanding an end “to armed provocations by the armed formations of the Russian Federation.”
The Russian Defense Ministry did indeed announce the start of a series of drills near Ukraine’s borders in mid-March. A week-long bilateral command post exercise began on March 11, “with combined-arms formations of the army stationed in the Smolensk, Voronezh, Kursk, Belgorod, Bryansk, and Moscow regions,” reported spokespeople for Russia’s Western Military District.
Military drills were announced in Crimea on March 18–19, with the arrival of paratroopers, marines, and heliborne troops. These exercises involved the participation of 2,000 military personnel and 500 pieces of military equipment (they even closed the Crimean Bridge, albeit briefly).
And in Russia’s Southern Military District, Air Defense drills that include live firing exercises of Tor and Buk missile systems are being conducted at the Kapustin Yar training ground until mid-April.
