Vladimir Putin may have ordered up to half a million troops to the Ukrainian border as fears of war in Europe rise.
A veteran analyst today warned that the country is on the “doorstep of war” thanks to “total mobilisation” on a level not seen for nearly 50 years, at the height of the Cold War.
Russia is ready to go to war with the US if it intervenes, it is claimed – in spite of Joe Biden’s call for calm.
Today Russian navy began drills in the Black Sea in a show of strength ahead of the arrival of two US warships in the region.
Videos released today seem to show heavy armaments on the move in Krasnodar region and naval vessels on the Don River.
Russia is known to be switching landing ships and other crafts from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea for the first time since the end of the Soviet era.
Chilling new footage today also showed Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on manoeuvres – while Ukraine also conducted naval exercises off Crimea.
(Image: RIA Novosti)
Yesterday Joe Biden called for a summit with Putin in a neutral country – but Russia has vowed decisive action if new Western sanctions follow.
This comes as a veteran independent Russian defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer has claimed Putin may have ordered the movement of “more than half a million” troops involving forces from the Pacific to the Baltic.
Asked on Ekho Moscow radio if Russia was “on the doorstep of war”, he replied: “Practically, we are.”
He said: “An unprecedented mobilisation of the Russian armed forces is taking place.
“All the armed forces. This has not happened either since 1973, or since 1962. Total mobilisation. All armed forces .
(Image: Warsaw Security Forum)
(Image: Sergei Malgavko/TASS)
“The exact number of people participating is not officially indicated. Apparently more than half a million.”
He stressed that the movements of troops take place during the day in order to show that Russia is “fully mobilised” and “in full combat readiness”.
He said: “Because if we start something with Ukraine, the Americans said that they would support it, then we are ready to go to war with America at any moment.”
He claimed Russian was “preparing a deep operation for the total defeat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by means of a strike, containment at the Donbass front itself and a powerful blow through Kharkiv from Voronezh, Bryansk, and Belgorod, cutting off and encircling the Ukrainian grouping in Donbass.
“And a counter strike from the Crimea. Plus a landing to ‘free’ Mykolaiv and Odessa from Ukraine.”
(Image: Alexei DruzhininTASS via Getty Images)
(Image: @tiimoooshka; TikTok)
He stressed: “This does not mean that it will necessarily begin. But the preparation is serious.”
Such an attack would be possible between now and September, he forecast.
“In order for the West not to interfere and leave it to Ukraine to be devoured, we must show that we are ready for an all-out war.”
Felgenhauer alleged: “Putin says that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, and should live in one state. Ein volk, ein Reich.
“And that the Ukrainian nation-state and the Ukrainian nation is a disgusting chimera invented by the Austro-Hungarians.”
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The current troop movements show “a fundamental difference from the routine of recent years”, he told independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
“The Russian defence ministry had begun an unprecedented general mobilisation throughout the country from Chukotka (close to Alaska) to Kaliningrad (between Poland and Lithuania) and the advance of troops to the borders of Ukraine under the pretext of a ‘combat readiness check’.”
Felgenhauer – who has worked as a defence analyst and expert for the Russian media for three decades – said: “All this looks as if the Russian General Staff is gathering forces and means for a possible ‘deep’ strategic operation.
“A powerful tank wedge of the right flank, striking to the southwest through Kharkiv, cuts through weak Ukrainian defences, breaking through places where no-one has fought with anyone since 1943.
(Image: TV Zvezda)
“Somewhere on the Left Bank, in the lower reaches of the Dnieper River, the oncoming southern wedge from the Crimea joins the northern one.
“ Powerful airborne assault forces bring an additional element of chaos to the Ukrainian command and control system.
“The main Russian-speaking cities of south and east (Ukraine) will be occupied in the course of a victorious and fleeting blitzkrieg.
“The rest of Ukraine will be denied access to the sea.
“As it was recently announced, the end of Ukraine as a state will come.”
Ukraine gained its independence in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the two nations have had a hostile relationship for three decades.
Russia has been regularly accused of colluding with Ukrainian separatists in the east, and Ukrainian officials have frequently claimed Moscow is intent on splitting the country in half.
Large swathes of the Donbas conflict region in eastern Ukraine has a large population of Russian speakers, with a large proportion holding Russian passports.
Putin has vocally pledged to protect Russian citizens in other countries, offer a possible pretext to incursions into Ukraine.
(Image: TV Zvezda)
In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea, a move that drew international condemnation and further demonstrated Putin’s intention to expand his borders into former Soviet countries.
An estimated 14,000 people have died in the conflict
Russia said its naval exercises involved “a detachment of ships of the Black Sea Fleet” conducting artillery firing as part of a combat readiness check.
This included frigate Admiral Makarov, small missile ships Graivoron and Vyshny Volochek, air-cushion missile ship Samum, minesweeper Ivan Golubets, as well as large landing ships.