On Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia is still arming pro-Moscow separatists in Eastern Ukraine, despite a cease-fire agreement, and has its own forces in the country, too. "Russia is present in eastern Ukraine," he told The New York Times, citing "our own intelligence" as well as "open sources." Reuters reports that Russia appears to be preparing to send in a lot more troops and heavy arms, including tanks, missile launchers, and artillery.
Reuters is basing its report on visual confirmation from one its reporters, who observed four trains loaded with Russian troops and armaments arriving in southern Russia's Rostov region, then traveling on to the Kuzminsky firing range, 30 miles from the Ukraine border, which has been transformed into a makeshift military base. Most of the troops were wearing no insignia, and the plates and other identifying marks were removed from the tanks, Reuters reports, adding that an advocate for the families of Russian troops says the base is being used as a staging ground for troops headed to Ukraine.
Such camps have been sprouting up along the Ukraine border, something "anyone with access to Google Earth or Google Maps" can see, according to a report released Thursday by the Atlantic Council. The report, "Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin's War in Ukraine," uses social media, satellite images, and other open sources of data to prove Russia's meddling inside Ukraine. A Western official told The New York Times that Russia has moved about nine battalions close to Ukraine's border, and five more could be coming, meaning more than 10,000 Russian troops could be in Ukraine within weeks.
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