German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday that Germany would do everything in its power to guarantee Ukraine's security. She was on her first visit to Ukraine.

"We will do our all to guarantee Ukraine's security. We will do our all to guarantee Europe's security," she said at a press conference following talks with her Ukrainian counterpart, a day before she is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.

Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops and heavy military equipment along its border with Ukraine. Though Russia claims that it does not intend to invade Ukraine, fears of such an attack remain. Ukraine was part of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Russia has already annexed Ukraine Crimean peninsula in 2014. Russia remains fiercely opposed to Ukraine's inclusion in NATO.

Speaking during a visit to Madrid, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said "we expect clear steps from Russia to de-escalate the situation".

"Military aggression against Ukraine would have serious political as well as economic consequences" for Russia, he added at a joint news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Baerbock's visit to Kyiv comes amid attempts to revive the so-called Normandy Format grouping of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine whose aim is to de-escalate the conflict.

Her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, told reporters following discussions that Ukraine and Germany were "committed to a diplomatic settlement of this conflict".

"Our joint goal is the effective work of the Normandy Format and the holding of a summit of leaders of the Normandy Format," Kuleba said.

He reiterated however Ukraine's intention to receive weapons from the West, after Kyiv in December accused Berlin of blocking the supply of NATO arms.

"Our dialogue with Germany on this issue will continue," Kuleba said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to hold his first meeting with Baerbock on Tuesday.

(With inputs from agencies)

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday that Germany would do everything in its power to guarantee Ukraine's security. She was on her first visit to Ukraine.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday that Germany would do everything in its power to guarantee Ukraine's security. She was on her first visit to Ukraine. "We will do our all to guarantee Ukraine's security. We will do our all to guarantee Europe's security," she said at a press conference following talks with her Ukrainian counterpart, a day before she is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops and heavy military equipment along its border with Ukraine. Though Russia claims that it does not intend to invade Ukraine, fears of such an attack remain. Ukraine was part of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Russia has already annexed Ukraine Crimean peninsula in 2014. Russia remains fiercely opposed to Ukraine's inclusion in NATO. Speaking during a visit to Madrid, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said "we expect clear steps from Russia to de-escalate the situation". "Military aggression against Ukraine would have serious political as well as economic consequences" for Russia, he added at a joint news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Baerbock's visit to Kyiv comes amid attempts to revive the so-called Normandy Format grouping of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine whose aim is to de-escalate the conflict. Her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, told reporters following discussions that Ukraine and Germany were "committed to a diplomatic settlement of this conflict". "Our joint goal is the effective work of the Normandy Format and the holding of a summit of leaders of the Normandy Format," Kuleba said. He reiterated however Ukraine's intention to receive weapons from the West, after Kyiv in December accused Berlin of blocking the supply of NATO arms. "Our dialogue with Germany on this issue will continue," Kuleba said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to hold his first meeting with Baerbock on Tuesday. (With inputs from agencies)

Germany will do 'all' to ensure Ukraine's security, says foreign minister

A senior US official said on Sunday that the US will announce its "next steps" over Ukraine crisis. The statement came after &nbsp;intense diplomacy failed to ease the threat of a new conflict over Ukraine

Amid mounting fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, national security advisor Jake Sullivan said the US was "ready either way."&nbsp;

"We're in close touch with our allies and partners, including the Ukrainians," the top advisor to President Joe Biden told CBS. "We're coordinating closely on next steps. And we'll have more to share in terms of the next steps into the diplomacy early next week."

"But the key point here is that we're ready either way. If Russia wants to move forward with diplomacy, we are absolutely ready to do that in lockstep with our allies and partners.

"If Russia wants to go down the path of invasion and escalation, we're ready for that too, with a robust response."

Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine. Though Russia claims that it does not plan to invade Ukraine, tensions are high.

The Kremlin again insisted on Sunday that it did not want to lead "a military action," even while warning of unnamed "counter actions" if NATO rejects Moscow's demands to lessen its military presence in Eastern Europe.

Meantime, officials in Kiev said Sunday they had proof that Moscow was involved in what they called a "massive cyberattack on government websites" in Ukraine.&nbsp;

The Kremlin has denied any involvement.

(With inputs from agencies)

A senior US official said on Sunday that the US will announce its "next steps" over Ukraine crisis. The statement came after intense diplomacy failed to ease the threat of a new conflict over Ukraine Amid mounting fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, national security advisor Jake Sullivan said the US was "ready either way.

A senior US official said on Sunday that the US will announce its "next steps" over Ukraine crisis. The statement came after intense diplomacy failed to ease the threat of a new conflict over Ukraine Amid mounting fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, national security advisor Jake Sullivan said the US was "ready either way." "We're in close touch with our allies and partners, including the Ukrainians," the top advisor to President Joe Biden told CBS. "We're coordinating closely on next steps. And we'll have more to share in terms of the next steps into the diplomacy early next week." "But the key point here is that we're ready either way. If Russia wants to move forward with diplomacy, we are absolutely ready to do that in lockstep with our allies and partners. "If Russia wants to go down the path of invasion and escalation, we're ready for that too, with a robust response." Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine. Though Russia claims that it does not plan to invade Ukraine, tensions are high. The Kremlin again insisted on Sunday that it did not want to lead "a military action," even while warning of unnamed "counter actions" if NATO rejects Moscow's demands to lessen its military presence in Eastern Europe. Meantime, officials in Kiev said Sunday they had proof that Moscow was involved in what they called a "massive cyberattack on government websites" in Ukraine. The Kremlin has denied any involvement. (With inputs from agencies)

Ukraine crisis: US 'ready either way', says Biden aide

Russia launched its military buildup along the Ukrainian border because it could no longer "tolerate" NATO's eastward expansion and "gradual invasion" of Ukraine, according to a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We have seen the gradual invasion of NATO into the Ukrainian territory with its infrastructure, with its instructors, with supplies of defensive and offensive weapons, teaching the Ukrainian military and so forth. That brought us to the red line, a situation where we couldn’t tolerate it anymore," he said.

Participating in a television program, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, "The stage for the current border crisis was set decades ago, in the 1990s."

Nearly 100,000 Russian troops have recently gathered near Ukraine, raising fears that Russia may invade the country shortly.&nbsp; 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/what-will-happen-if-russian-troops-invade-ukraine-431684">Pictures: What will happen if Russian troops invade Ukraine?</a>

"When Germany was reunited and when the then-Soviet Union and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev said OK to that, there was a promise by American side.Unfortunately, not fixed in a juridical, in a legally binding guaranteeing document, but it — there was a guarantee that NATO would never ... expand its military infrastructure or political infrastructure eastwards, " Peskov said.&nbsp;

"Unfortunately, the opposite thing started to happen since then, and NATO's military infrastructure started to get closer and closer to the borders of the Russian Federation," he added, saying that recent actions by the U.S. military led Russia to feel that its national security was being "endangered." 
 
Watch | Ukraine crisis continues to escalate with Russia &amp; the US harden stances in talks

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According to Peskov, a professional diplomat and veteran Putin spokesman, NATO is a "weapon of confrontation," not a "dove of peace."

Russia has asked for an assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO, which it believes would pose a serious threat to its security.&nbsp;

If security discussions with the US and NATO fail, Russia will not consider military action, but it will be ready to respond if its concerns are disregarded, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.&nbsp;

Some of the red lines, according to Peskov, are NATO's reluctance to guarantee not to admit Ukraine as a member, put offensive weapons on its soil, or halt advancing military facilities to the Russian border.He stated that the Kremlin wanted NATO to begin considering its concerns.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

Russia launched its military buildup along the Ukrainian border because it could no longer "tolerate" NATO's eastward expansion and "gradual invasion" of Ukraine, according to a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia launched its military buildup along the Ukrainian border because it could no longer "tolerate" NATO's eastward expansion and "gradual invasion" of Ukraine, according to a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin. "We have seen the gradual invasion of NATO into the Ukrainian territory with its infrastructure, with its instructors, with supplies of defensive and offensive weapons, teaching the Ukrainian military and so forth. That brought us to the red line, a situation where we couldn’t tolerate it anymore," he said. Participating in a television program, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, "The stage for the current border crisis was set decades ago, in the 1990s." Nearly 100,000 Russian troops have recently gathered near Ukraine, raising fears that Russia may invade the country shortly. Pictures: What will happen if Russian troops invade Ukraine? "When Germany was reunited and when the then-Soviet Union and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev said OK to that, there was a promise by American side.Unfortunately, not fixed in a juridical, in a legally binding guaranteeing document, but it — there was a guarantee that NATO would never ... expand its military infrastructure or political infrastructure eastwards, " Peskov said. "Unfortunately, the opposite thing started to happen since then, and NATO's military infrastructure started to get closer and closer to the borders of the Russian Federation," he added, saying that recent actions by the U.S. military led Russia to feel that its national security was being "endangered." Watch | Ukraine crisis continues to escalate with Russia & the US harden stances in talks According to Peskov, a professional diplomat and veteran Putin spokesman, NATO is a "weapon of confrontation," not a "dove of peace." Russia has asked for an assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO, which it believes would pose a serious threat to its security. If security discussions with the US and NATO fail, Russia will not consider military action, but it will be ready to respond if its concerns are disregarded, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Some of the red lines, according to Peskov, are NATO's reluctance to guarantee not to admit Ukraine as a member, put offensive weapons on its soil, or halt advancing military facilities to the Russian border.He stated that the Kremlin wanted NATO to begin considering its concerns. (With inputs from agencies)

Russia cannot have NATO creeping into Ukraine anymore, Putin spokesman says

Even as talks between Russia and US &amp; its NATO allies over Ukraine have hit a dead-end, Poland’s foreign minister has warned that Europe might dragged into war if the tensions are not defused soon.

Without naming Russia in his address to envoys from the 57 members of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Zbigniew Rau said that tensions in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, have active or frozen conflicts where Kremlin is alleged to be a party.

“It seems that the risk of war in the OSCE area is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years,” Poland’s foreign minister Zbigniew Rau, who currently chairs the Vienna-based intergovernmental body, said on Thursday during the latest round of talks on Russia.&nbsp;

Rau reported no breakthrough at the Vienna meeting, which followed Russia-US&nbsp;talks in Geneva on Monday and a Russia-NATO conference in Brussels on Wednesday.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/amid-ukraine-tensions-russia-unveils-white-swan-strategic-bomber-444279">Amid Ukraine tensions, Russia unveils ‘White Swan’ strategic bomber</a>

Meanwhile, the White House claimed that the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained high with some 100,000 Russian troops deployed.

Michael Carpenter, US Ambassador to the OSCE, said the United States would make public within 24 hours intelligence suggesting that Russia might launch another invasion on Ukraine.

“The drumbeat of war is sounding loud, and the rhetoric has gotten rather shrill,” Carpenter said after talks with Russia in Vienna.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/biden-enlists-meteorologists-to-predict-russias-ukraine-invasion-plan-report-444048">Biden enlists meteorologists to predict Russia's Ukraine invasion plan: Report</a>

Russia, however, junked the reports that it is going to invade Ukraine.

“There is no reason to fear some kind of escalatory scenario,” Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei A Ryabkov told reporters after the meeting.

“The talks were difficult, long, very professional, deep, concrete, without attempts to gloss over some sharp edges,” Ryabkov said.

“We had the feeling that the American side took the Russian proposals very seriously and studied them deeply.”

(With inputs from agencies)

Even as talks between Russia and US & its NATO allies over Ukraine have hit a dead-end, Poland’s foreign minister has warned that Europe might dragged into war if the tensions are not defused soon.

Even as talks between Russia and US & its NATO allies over Ukraine have hit a dead-end, Poland’s foreign minister has warned that Europe might dragged into war if the tensions are not defused soon. Without naming Russia in his address to envoys from the 57 members of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Zbigniew Rau said that tensions in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, have active or frozen conflicts where Kremlin is alleged to be a party. “It seems that the risk of war in the OSCE area is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years,” Poland’s foreign minister Zbigniew Rau, who currently chairs the Vienna-based intergovernmental body, said on Thursday during the latest round of talks on Russia. Rau reported no breakthrough at the Vienna meeting, which followed Russia-US talks in Geneva on Monday and a Russia-NATO conference in Brussels on Wednesday. Also read | Amid Ukraine tensions, Russia unveils ‘White Swan’ strategic bomber Meanwhile, the White House claimed that the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained high with some 100,000 Russian troops deployed. Michael Carpenter, US Ambassador to the OSCE, said the United States would make public within 24 hours intelligence suggesting that Russia might launch another invasion on Ukraine. “The drumbeat of war is sounding loud, and the rhetoric has gotten rather shrill,” Carpenter said after talks with Russia in Vienna. Also read | Biden enlists meteorologists to predict Russia's Ukraine invasion plan: Report Russia, however, junked the reports that it is going to invade Ukraine. “There is no reason to fear some kind of escalatory scenario,” Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei A Ryabkov told reporters after the meeting. “The talks were difficult, long, very professional, deep, concrete, without attempts to gloss over some sharp edges,” Ryabkov said. “We had the feeling that the American side took the Russian proposals very seriously and studied them deeply.” (With inputs from agencies)

With no breakthrough between US and Russia over Ukraine, Poland warns of risk of war

The United States has sent a written response to Russia's demands in eastern Europe. While it offered a "principled and pragmatic evaluation" of the Kremlin's concerns, the US has upheld North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's (NATO) 'open-door' policy. This policy refers to NATO's openness to new member countries. Ukraine is keen to be part of NATO, something Russia is fiercely against.

The written response to Russia's demands was delivered in person by US ambassador in Moscow.

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&nbsp;

Russia has demanded NATO pull back troops and weapons from eastern Europe and bar its neighbour Ukraine, a former Soviet state, from ever joining. Washington and its NATO allies reject that position but say they are ready to discuss other topics such as arms control and confidence-building measures.

"Putting things in writing is ... a good way to make sure we're as precise as possible, and the Russians understand our positions, our ideas, as clearly as possible. Right now, the document is with them and the ball is in their court," said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Whether President Vladimir Putin is prepared to accept Washington and its allies' agenda will determine the next phase of the crisis, in which Moscow has massed around 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine while denying it plans to invade.

NATO says it is putting forces on standby and reinforcing eastern Europe with more ships and fighter jets, while the US, Britain and others are providing weapons to help Ukraine defend against Russia's much larger army.

Asked how much time Russia would need to study NATO's response, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Interfax news agency: "We will read it. Study it. The partners studied our project for almost a month and a half."

Dialogue

In Paris, diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany held more than eight hours of talks on ending a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, part of the wider crisis between Moscow and Kyiv that risks becoming a full-scale war.

The so-called "Normandy" talks were a good signal from Russia and a step toward defusing broader tensions, though major differences remained with further talks planned in Berlin in two weeks, a French official said.

Western-Russian differences were on full display on Tuesday with U.S. President Joe Biden saying he would consider imposing sanctions personally on Putin if he invades Ukraine, part of an attempt by Washington to convince Moscow that any new action against Ukraine would bring massive costs.

(With inputs from agencies)

The United States has sent a written response to Russia's demands in eastern Europe. While it offered a "principled and pragmatic evaluation" of the Kremlin's concerns, the US has upheld North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's (NATO) 'open-door' policy.

The United States has sent a written response to Russia's demands in eastern Europe. While it offered a "principled and pragmatic evaluation" of the Kremlin's concerns, the US has upheld North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's (NATO) 'open-door' policy. This policy refers to NATO's openness to new member countries. Ukraine is keen to be part of NATO, something Russia is fiercely against. The written response to Russia's demands was delivered in person by US ambassador in Moscow. × Russia has demanded NATO pull back troops and weapons from eastern Europe and bar its neighbour Ukraine, a former Soviet state, from ever joining. Washington and its NATO allies reject that position but say they are ready to discuss other topics such as arms control and confidence-building measures. "Putting things in writing is ... a good way to make sure we're as precise as possible, and the Russians understand our positions, our ideas, as clearly as possible. Right now, the document is with them and the ball is in their court," said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Whether President Vladimir Putin is prepared to accept Washington and its allies' agenda will determine the next phase of the crisis, in which Moscow has massed around 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine while denying it plans to invade. NATO says it is putting forces on standby and reinforcing eastern Europe with more ships and fighter jets, while the US, Britain and others are providing weapons to help Ukraine defend against Russia's much larger army. Asked how much time Russia would need to study NATO's response, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Interfax news agency: "We will read it. Study it. The partners studied our project for almost a month and a half." Dialogue In Paris, diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany held more than eight hours of talks on ending a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, part of the wider crisis between Moscow and Kyiv that risks becoming a full-scale war. The so-called "Normandy" talks were a good signal from Russia and a step toward defusing broader tensions, though major differences remained with further talks planned in Berlin in two weeks, a French official said. Western-Russian differences were on full display on Tuesday with U.S. President Joe Biden saying he would consider imposing sanctions personally on Putin if he invades Ukraine, part of an attempt by Washington to convince Moscow that any new action against Ukraine would bring massive costs. (With inputs from agencies)

Ukraine crisis: US responds to Russian demands, upholds NATO's 'open-door' policy

Senior Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Paris along with French and German counterparts. The talks lasted eight hours and all parties agreed to a ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine.

Four Way Normandy Talks: Moscow, Kyiv agree to ceasefire in East Ukraine

In the early years of Vladimir Putin’s tenure as Russia’s leader, the country’s military was a hollowed-out but nuclear-armed shell.

It struggled to keep submarines afloat in the Arctic and an outgunned insurgency at bay in Chechnya. Senior officers sometimes lived in moldy, rat-infested tenements. And instead of socks, poorly trained soldiers often wrapped their feet in swaths of cloth, the way their Soviet and Tsarist predecessors had.

Two decades later, it is a far different fighting force that has massed near the border with Ukraine. Under Putin’s leadership, it has been overhauled into a modern sophisticated army, able to deploy quickly and with lethal effect in conventional conflicts, military analysts said. It features precision-guided weaponry, a newly streamlined command structure and well-fed and professional soldiers. And they still have the nuclear weapons.

The modernized military has emerged as a key tool of Putin’s foreign policy: capturing Crimea, intervening in Syria, keeping the peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and, just this month, propping up a Russia-friendly leader in Kazakhstan. Now it is in the middle of its most ambitious — and most ominous — operation yet: using threats and potentially, many fear, force, to bring Ukraine back into Moscow’s sphere of influence.

“The mobility of the military, its preparedness and its equipment are what allow Russia to pressure Ukraine and to pressure the West,” said Pavel Luzin, a Russian security analyst. “Nuclear weapons are not enough.”

Without firing a shot, Putin has forced the Biden administration to shelve other foreign policy priorities and contend with Kremlin grievances the White House has long dismissed — in particular reversing Ukraine’s Westward lean in the post-Soviet period.

It is Putin’s highest-stakes use of the military to muscle Russia back into the global relevance it lost with the ending of the Cold War. Putin laid out that doctrine in 2018, when he used his annual state-of-the-nation speech to unveil new nuclear weapons that could fly 20 times the speed of sound.

“No one listened to us,” Putin said in his address, which included a video simulation showing a Russian missile heading toward the United States. “Listen to us now.”

Today, it is the overhaul of the conventional forces that has provided leverage in the Ukraine crisis.

The T-72B3 tanks amassed on Ukraine’s border have a new thermal optics system for nighttime fighting as well as guided missiles with twice the range of other tanks, according to Robert Lee, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Ph.D. candidate at King’s College in London, who is a Russian military expert. Kalibr cruise missiles deployed on ships and submarines in the Black Sea and Iskander-M rockets arrayed along the border can hit targets just about anywhere inside Ukraine, Lee said.

In the past decade, the Russian air force has acquired more than 1,000 new aircraft, according to a 2020 article by Alexei Krivoruchko, a deputy defense minister. This includes the country’s most advanced fighters, the SU-35S; a squadron of these has been deployed to Belarus before joint military exercises next month.

The new capabilities were evident in Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015. They were not only effective, but caught some in the U.S. military off guard.

“I’m embarrassed to admit, I was surprised a few years ago when Kalibr missiles came flying out of the Caspian Sea, hitting targets in Syria,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. “That was a surprise to me, not only the capability, but I didn’t even know they were there.”

Kremlin thinking has also evolved over the size of the armed forces. The military relies less on a dwindling number of conscripts and more on a slimmed-down, well-trained core of roughly 400,000 contract soldiers.

These soldiers receive better treatment. Visiting the Defense Ministry in December, Putin boasted that the average lieutenant now made just over the equivalent of $1,000 per month, better than the average salary in other sectors. The federal government, he added, was spending about $1.5 billion on subsidizing private housing for service members.

And all Russian soldiers are now required to be deployed with thick, military issued socks.

What is new is not just Russia’s upgraded equipment, but the evolving theory of how the Kremlin uses it. The military has honed an approach that Dmitry Adamsky, a scholar of international security at Reichman University in Israel, calls “cross-domain coercion” — blending the real or threatened use of force with diplomacy, cyberattacks and propaganda to achieve political aims.

That blended strategy is playing out in the current crisis around Ukraine. Russia is pushing for immediate wide-ranging concessions from the West. Russian troop movements into allied Belarus put a potential invasion force within 100 miles of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Russian state media is warning that Ukrainian forces are the ones preparing acts of aggression.

And on Jan. 14, hackers brought down dozens of Ukrainian government websites and posted a message on one stating, “Be afraid and expect the worst.”

“You see some cyber, you see diplomacy, you see military exercises,” Adamsky said. “They are all related by design.”

Not all the forces arrayed along the Ukrainian border are Russia’s most advanced. The ones amassed in the north have older weaponry and are mostly there to intimidate and stretch Ukrainian resources, said Oleksiy Arestovych, a former Ukrainian military intelligence officer who is now a political and military analyst.

The more well-equipped and modernized units, he said, have moved into the area close to two breakaway provinces in Ukraine’s east, where Russia instigated a separatist war in 2014 that continues today.

Russia’s military modernization is also, increasingly, meant to send a message to the United States, projecting power beyond Eastern Europe, frustrating and sometimes surprising U.S. officials.

It took Russia’s military transport planes only hours, for instance, to start ferrying about 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops, along with heavy armor, to the Southern Caucasus after Putin brokered an end to the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

In Syria, where Russia intervened in 2015 using devastating airstrikes and limited ground troops to protect President Bashar Assad, Russia’s advancements showed it could effectively deploy precision-guided weaponry, long an edge that Western armed forces had held over Russia.

Russia used the war in Syria, experts say, as a laboratory to refine tactics and weaponry, and to gain combat experience for much of its force. More responsibility was delegated to lower-level officers, a degree of autonomy that contrasts with the civilian government structure in the Putin era. Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu said last month that all ground troop commanders, 92% of air force pilots and 62% of the navy had combat experience.

“They showed to themselves and the whole world they are able to wage large-scale operations with precision weapons, and long-range weapons, and intelligence capability to support it,” Adamsky, the expert based in Israel, said.

For all its strides in recent years, Russia’s military retains a critical weakness of its Soviet predecessor: the civilian side of the country’s economy, nearly devoid of high-tech manufacturing and corporate investment in research and development. Army expenditures amount to a far higher percentage of the gross domestic product than in most European countries, starving other sectors.

When Ukraine’s military shot down Russian reconnaissance drones, for example, they discovered electronics and motors bought from hobby drone companies in Western Europe, according to a report published in November by Conflict Armament Research, a company based in Britain that specializes in tracing weaponry.

Russia possesses few new weapons systems fully created from the ground up, analysts say. Much of its modernization consists of refurbishments of older equipment.

But individual weapons systems are less important than the military’s innovative use of knowledge gained in each of the engagements of Putin’s tenure, said Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, who was NATO commander when war broke out in Ukraine in 2014.

“The compliment that we have to pay to Russia is that they are a learning and adaptive force,” Breedlove said. “Every time we see them in conflict, they get a little better and a little better.”

Putin was only a few months into his first presidential term when he faced a military catastrophe. On Aug. 12, 2000, a torpedo exploded inside the nuclear submarine Kursk, sending it to the Barents Sea floor with 118 sailors. The Russian navy’s failed rescue mission, leading to the deaths of all aboard and an uncharacteristic mea culpa from Putin, underscored the military’s ineptitude.

The sinking came to define Putin’s first term, along with a vicious and bloody war in Chechnya where the Russian military struggled for years to quash an Islamic insurgency.

A major turning point came in 2008 when a long-simmering conflict over disputed territories in the Republic of Georgia exploded into war.

Russian forces quickly overwhelmed their much smaller Georgian neighbors, but the war uncovered deep deficiencies in the Russian military. Ground troops were not in radio contact with the air force, leading to several serious friendly fire attacks. Communications were so bad that some officers had to use their personal cellphones. Tanks and armored personnel carriers broke down frequently.

The failures prompted a massive shake-up of the Russian armed forces. The Soviet military’s prowess at land warfare was revived, with improvements such as revamped artillery technology, according to Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House in London.

Just over a decade later, Russia’s tools of electronic warfare, which can be used to intercept or jam enemy communications and knock drones off course and out of the sky, are believed far superior to the U.S. military’s, analysts said.

“We’re playing catch-up now,” Hodges said. “For the last 20 years, we were focused on iPhones or cellphones and terrorist networks, while they continued to develop substantial, powerful jamming and intercept capabilities.”

There have been some setbacks for Moscow, including unsettling weapons failures. In 2019, a prototype of a nuclear-propelled cruise missile — hailed by Putin as the centerpiece of a new arms race with the United States — blew up during a test, killing at least seven people and spewing radiation for miles.

But as the Kremlin’s rhetoric increasingly cast Russia as locked in an existential conflict with the West, little expense was spared. The investment in the military was accompanied by a militarization of Russian society under Putin, entrenching the concept of a motherland surrounded by enemies and the possibility of a coming war.

All those developments, analysts say, make it hard for the West to stop Putin from attacking Ukraine, if he is determined.

“There’s very little we can do to deny Russia’s ability to wage further warfare against Ukraine,” Boulègue said. “We can’t deter a worldview.”

In the early years of Vladimir Putin’s tenure as Russia’s leader, the country’s military was a hollowed-out but nuclear-armed shell. It struggled to keep submarines afloat in the Arctic and an outgunned insurgency at bay in Chechnya.

In the early years of Vladimir Putin’s tenure as Russia’s leader, the country’s military was a hollowed-out but nuclear-armed shell. It struggled to keep submarines afloat in the Arctic and an outgunned insurgency at bay in Chechnya. Senior officers sometimes lived in moldy, rat-infested tenements. And instead of socks, poorly trained soldiers often wrapped their feet in swaths of cloth, the way their Soviet and Tsarist predecessors had. Two decades later, it is a far different fighting force that has massed near the border with Ukraine. Under Putin’s leadership, it has been overhauled into a modern sophisticated army, able to deploy quickly and with lethal effect in conventional conflicts, military analysts said. It features precision-guided weaponry, a newly streamlined command structure and well-fed and professional soldiers. And they still have the nuclear weapons. The modernized military has emerged as a key tool of Putin’s foreign policy: capturing Crimea, intervening in Syria, keeping the peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and, just this month, propping up a Russia-friendly leader in Kazakhstan. Now it is in the middle of its most ambitious — and most ominous — operation yet: using threats and potentially, many fear, force, to bring Ukraine back into Moscow’s sphere of influence. “The mobility of the military, its preparedness and its equipment are what allow Russia to pressure Ukraine and to pressure the West,” said Pavel Luzin, a Russian security analyst. “Nuclear weapons are not enough.” Without firing a shot, Putin has forced the Biden administration to shelve other foreign policy priorities and contend with Kremlin grievances the White House has long dismissed — in particular reversing Ukraine’s Westward lean in the post-Soviet period. It is Putin’s highest-stakes use of the military to muscle Russia back into the global relevance it lost with the ending of the Cold War. Putin laid out that doctrine in 2018, when he used his annual state-of-the-nation speech to unveil new nuclear weapons that could fly 20 times the speed of sound. “No one listened to us,” Putin said in his address, which included a video simulation showing a Russian missile heading toward the United States. “Listen to us now.” Today, it is the overhaul of the conventional forces that has provided leverage in the Ukraine crisis. The T-72B3 tanks amassed on Ukraine’s border have a new thermal optics system for nighttime fighting as well as guided missiles with twice the range of other tanks, according to Robert Lee, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Ph.D. candidate at King’s College in London, who is a Russian military expert. Kalibr cruise missiles deployed on ships and submarines in the Black Sea and Iskander-M rockets arrayed along the border can hit targets just about anywhere inside Ukraine, Lee said. In the past decade, the Russian air force has acquired more than 1,000 new aircraft, according to a 2020 article by Alexei Krivoruchko, a deputy defense minister. This includes the country’s most advanced fighters, the SU-35S; a squadron of these has been deployed to Belarus before joint military exercises next month. The new capabilities were evident in Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015. They were not only effective, but caught some in the U.S. military off guard. “I’m embarrassed to admit, I was surprised a few years ago when Kalibr missiles came flying out of the Caspian Sea, hitting targets in Syria,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. “That was a surprise to me, not only the capability, but I didn’t even know they were there.” Kremlin thinking has also evolved over the size of the armed forces. The military relies less on a dwindling number of conscripts and more on a slimmed-down, well-trained core of roughly 400,000 contract soldiers. These soldiers receive better treatment. Visiting the Defense Ministry in December, Putin boasted that the average lieutenant now made just over the equivalent of $1,000 per month, better than the average salary in other sectors. The federal government, he added, was spending about $1.5 billion on subsidizing private housing for service members. And all Russian soldiers are now required to be deployed with thick, military issued socks. What is new is not just Russia’s upgraded equipment, but the evolving theory of how the Kremlin uses it. The military has honed an approach that Dmitry Adamsky, a scholar of international security at Reichman University in Israel, calls “cross-domain coercion” — blending the real or threatened use of force with diplomacy, cyberattacks and propaganda to achieve political aims. That blended strategy is playing out in the current crisis around Ukraine. Russia is pushing for immediate wide-ranging concessions from the West. Russian troop movements into allied Belarus put a potential invasion force within 100 miles of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Russian state media is warning that Ukrainian forces are the ones preparing acts of aggression. And on Jan. 14, hackers brought down dozens of Ukrainian government websites and posted a message on one stating, “Be afraid and expect the worst.” “You see some cyber, you see diplomacy, you see military exercises,” Adamsky said. “They are all related by design.” Not all the forces arrayed along the Ukrainian border are Russia’s most advanced. The ones amassed in the north have older weaponry and are mostly there to intimidate and stretch Ukrainian resources, said Oleksiy Arestovych, a former Ukrainian military intelligence officer who is now a political and military analyst. The more well-equipped and modernized units, he said, have moved into the area close to two breakaway provinces in Ukraine’s east, where Russia instigated a separatist war in 2014 that continues today. Russia’s military modernization is also, increasingly, meant to send a message to the United States, projecting power beyond Eastern Europe, frustrating and sometimes surprising U.S. officials. It took Russia’s military transport planes only hours, for instance, to start ferrying about 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops, along with heavy armor, to the Southern Caucasus after Putin brokered an end to the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. In Syria, where Russia intervened in 2015 using devastating airstrikes and limited ground troops to protect President Bashar Assad, Russia’s advancements showed it could effectively deploy precision-guided weaponry, long an edge that Western armed forces had held over Russia. Russia used the war in Syria, experts say, as a laboratory to refine tactics and weaponry, and to gain combat experience for much of its force. More responsibility was delegated to lower-level officers, a degree of autonomy that contrasts with the civilian government structure in the Putin era. Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu said last month that all ground troop commanders, 92% of air force pilots and 62% of the navy had combat experience. “They showed to themselves and the whole world they are able to wage large-scale operations with precision weapons, and long-range weapons, and intelligence capability to support it,” Adamsky, the expert based in Israel, said. For all its strides in recent years, Russia’s military retains a critical weakness of its Soviet predecessor: the civilian side of the country’s economy, nearly devoid of high-tech manufacturing and corporate investment in research and development. Army expenditures amount to a far higher percentage of the gross domestic product than in most European countries, starving other sectors. When Ukraine’s military shot down Russian reconnaissance drones, for example, they discovered electronics and motors bought from hobby drone companies in Western Europe, according to a report published in November by Conflict Armament Research, a company based in Britain that specializes in tracing weaponry. Russia possesses few new weapons systems fully created from the ground up, analysts say. Much of its modernization consists of refurbishments of older equipment. But individual weapons systems are less important than the military’s innovative use of knowledge gained in each of the engagements of Putin’s tenure, said Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, who was NATO commander when war broke out in Ukraine in 2014. “The compliment that we have to pay to Russia is that they are a learning and adaptive force,” Breedlove said. “Every time we see them in conflict, they get a little better and a little better.” Putin was only a few months into his first presidential term when he faced a military catastrophe. On Aug. 12, 2000, a torpedo exploded inside the nuclear submarine Kursk, sending it to the Barents Sea floor with 118 sailors. The Russian navy’s failed rescue mission, leading to the deaths of all aboard and an uncharacteristic mea culpa from Putin, underscored the military’s ineptitude. The sinking came to define Putin’s first term, along with a vicious and bloody war in Chechnya where the Russian military struggled for years to quash an Islamic insurgency. A major turning point came in 2008 when a long-simmering conflict over disputed territories in the Republic of Georgia exploded into war. Russian forces quickly overwhelmed their much smaller Georgian neighbors, but the war uncovered deep deficiencies in the Russian military. Ground troops were not in radio contact with the air force, leading to several serious friendly fire attacks. Communications were so bad that some officers had to use their personal cellphones. Tanks and armored personnel carriers broke down frequently. The failures prompted a massive shake-up of the Russian armed forces. The Soviet military’s prowess at land warfare was revived, with improvements such as revamped artillery technology, according to Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House in London. Just over a decade later, Russia’s tools of electronic warfare, which can be used to intercept or jam enemy communications and knock drones off course and out of the sky, are believed far superior to the U.S. military’s, analysts said. “We’re playing catch-up now,” Hodges said. “For the last 20 years, we were focused on iPhones or cellphones and terrorist networks, while they continued to develop substantial, powerful jamming and intercept capabilities.” There have been some setbacks for Moscow, including unsettling weapons failures. In 2019, a prototype of a nuclear-propelled cruise missile — hailed by Putin as the centerpiece of a new arms race with the United States — blew up during a test, killing at least seven people and spewing radiation for miles. But as the Kremlin’s rhetoric increasingly cast Russia as locked in an existential conflict with the West, little expense was spared. The investment in the military was accompanied by a militarization of Russian society under Putin, entrenching the concept of a motherland surrounded by enemies and the possibility of a coming war. All those developments, analysts say, make it hard for the West to stop Putin from attacking Ukraine, if he is determined. “There’s very little we can do to deny Russia’s ability to wage further warfare against Ukraine,” Boulègue said. “We can’t deter a worldview.”

Putin overhauled Russia's hollowed-out forces, modernizing the military

Civilian employees in Russia have started to take part in military training to defend their country against Russian invasion.

Ukraine civilians undergo military training to defend against Russian invasion

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The latest round of talks between France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine is underway in Paris over the Ukraine crisis. The meeting being held as a four-way discussion between the so called 'Normandy group'.

Four-way 'Normandy talks' underway in Paris on Ukraine border tension

The West led by the United States is scrambling to beef up its military preparations, fears are mounting that an invasion of Ukraine is imminent but Russia's state TV wants Russian citizens to think otherwise. It's focusing on issues like Omicron cases or the Beijing Olympics.

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The French President on Monday Emmanuel Macron is hosting a meeting between the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia on the conflict in eastern Ukraine in a bid to make progress toward possible solutions.

French President Emmanuel Macron hosts meeting on Ukraine crisis including Germany, Russia

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In what can add to the already high tensions in Europe, Russia has sent additional fighter jets for military drills. Russian Ministry of Defence released a video on Wednesday (January 26). Russia's Su-35 fighter jets have relocated to Belarusian airfields. This manoeuvre has come as Ukraine crisis shows no signs of dying down.

The Interfax news agency said on Friday, that Russia has send two battalions of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to Belarus.

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Russia and Belarus will hold joint military exercises "Allied Resolve" to work out the issues of suppressing and repelling external aggression and countering terrorism Russian State agency RIA Novosti reported.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/ukraine-crisis-joe-bidens-rare-sanction-threat-to-vladimir-putin-russian-medias-narrative-is-different-447605">Ukraine crisis: Joe Biden's rare sanction threat to Vladimir Putin; Russian media's narrative is different</a>

Russia still has about 100,000 troops stationed along its border with Ukraine. The threat of invasion is high and though Russia claims that it does not want to invade Ukraine, it is widely perceived to be creating pretext for an invasion. Russia has made it clear that it is dead against inclusion of Ukraine in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the military grouping that was formed as a bulwark against Soviet Union. Russia views expansion of NATO near its eastern borders as an attempt to meddle in its sphere of influence.&nbsp;

Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko is considered to be a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia's drills with Belarus have come as the West, mainly US has moved to provide weapons to Ukraine.

(With inputs from agencies)

In what can add to the already high tensions in Europe, Russia has sent additional fighter jets for military drills. Russian Ministry of Defence released a video on Wednesday (January 26).

In what can add to the already high tensions in Europe, Russia has sent additional fighter jets for military drills. Russian Ministry of Defence released a video on Wednesday (January 26). Russia's Su-35 fighter jets have relocated to Belarusian airfields. This manoeuvre has come as Ukraine crisis shows no signs of dying down. The Interfax news agency said on Friday, that Russia has send two battalions of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to Belarus. × Russia and Belarus will hold joint military exercises "Allied Resolve" to work out the issues of suppressing and repelling external aggression and countering terrorism Russian State agency RIA Novosti reported. Also Read | Ukraine crisis: Joe Biden's rare sanction threat to Vladimir Putin; Russian media's narrative is different Russia still has about 100,000 troops stationed along its border with Ukraine. The threat of invasion is high and though Russia claims that it does not want to invade Ukraine, it is widely perceived to be creating pretext for an invasion. Russia has made it clear that it is dead against inclusion of Ukraine in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the military grouping that was formed as a bulwark against Soviet Union. Russia views expansion of NATO near its eastern borders as an attempt to meddle in its sphere of influence. Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko is considered to be a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia's drills with Belarus have come as the West, mainly US has moved to provide weapons to Ukraine. (With inputs from agencies)

Russia sends more fighter planes for drills in Belarus

Ukraine says, there are at least 127,000 Russian troops at its borders and thousands more are expected to arrive in Belarus soon.

More Russian troops to arrive in Belarus soon, says Ukraine

While addressing a press conference, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO and its allies remains ready for dialogue with Russia.

NATO allies ready for dialogue with Russia, says Jens Stoltenberg

With no signs of de-escalation in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, NATO said that it was putting forces on standby and reinforcing eastern Europe with more troops. While Russia denounced it as western hysteria the US too said it was putting about 8,500 troops on high alert and were waiting orders to deploy troops to the region.

NATO deploys troops amid concerns over Ukraine invasion, Russia alleges 'western hysteria'

The Pentagon has announced that nearly 8,500 American troops have been put on “heightened alert” for a possible deployment due to escalating tensions on the Russia-Ukraine border.

US puts 8,500 troops on heightened alert amid growing tensions with Russia over Ukraine

US President Joe Biden has declared unity among Western powers after crisis talks with European leaders on deterring Russia from an attack against Ukraine.

US, Europe call for unity against Russia over Ukraine tensions

After months of simmering tensions at the Ukrainian border things seem to be heading towards a tipping point. While on the surface all players involved in this conflict that is Russia, Ukraine the United States and NATO have been calling for calm, the actions suggest otherwise.

Biden, EU call for unity against Russia against escalating tensions at Ukrainian border

US, UK, Australia are moving diplomats and dependents out of Ukraine. US says Russian military action can come any time. NATO say it is prepared for collective defence. But Germany is proving to be a weak link. Palki Sharma has the details.

Gravitas: Countries move diplomats out of Ukraine

The State Department has ordered the families of all American personnel at the US Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion.

US draws down Ukraine embassy presence as war fears mount

NATO has announced that it is deploying additional ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe in response to Russia’s military buildup along its border with Ukraine.

NATO allies sends additional ships, jets to Eastern Europe amid standoff with Russia

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