With no diplomatic breakthroughs in talks between Russia and NATO to discuss the crisis in Ukraine, tensions between the two continued to rise on Sunday with the arrival of military equipment and personnel in two of Ukraine's neighbors. Russia moved an unknown number of Sukhoi Su-25SM fighter jets into Belarus days before a planned military maneuver in the country, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Saturday. The aircraft were sent 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles) from Russia's Primorye region on the Sea of Japan to military airfields in the Brest region in western Belarus.
Moscow is planning to conduct a military maneuver in Belarus, starting on Thursday and lasting through Feb. 20. Meanwhile, in next-door Poland, the first group of promised U.S. troop reinforcements landed at the Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport in the country's southeast, not far from the Ukrainian border, the PAP news agency reported, quoting a military spokesperson.
Part of a U.S. plan announced earlier in the week to beef up American forces in Europe, the Beechcraft C-12 Huron aircraft arrived in Poland on Saturday morning carrying a small group of soldiers, the spokesperson said. The main contingent of the supplementary 1,700 U.S. troops is expected to arrive in Poland on Sunday. Another 300 U.S. troops were being redeployed to Germany, while some 1,000 U.S. troops already stationed in Germany are due to be transferred to Romania, which borders western Ukraine. Western allies believe that Russia is planning an incursion into Ukrainian territory in the near future. The Kremlin has vehemently denied this, instead accusing NATO of stoking tensions in the region. The various invasion scenarios predicted by Western intelligence sources include a Russian incursion into Ukraine through it's breakaway Donbass region, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Another is for Russia to invade from Belarus, which borders Ukraine, having used the planned military manoeuvres as a cover for a troop build up in the country.
NATO member states have also been moving ships, aircraft and troops into the Baltics and Eastern Europe in recent weeks. The alliance says that Russia has amassed some 30,000 combat troops in Belarus, including aircraft, nuclear-tipped Iskander missiles, S-400 air defence systems, and special units of the GRU military intelligence agency. In addition to that are the estimated 100,000 Russian troops already massed near Ukraine's border. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has indicated that fewer than 13,000 Russian soldiers, 300 tanks, 500 armored vehicles and 3,500 paratroopers will be involved in the exercises in Belarus.
