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Russian military vehicles on the way to the joint military exercise in Belarus (on January 24)
Photo: Uncredited / dpa
Russia has already relocated the first military technology to neighboring Belarus for a military exercise planned for mid-February.
Short-range anti-aircraft missile systems have arrived in Belarus, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Several fighter planes had previously been relocated.
Another Russian air defense system is apparently still on its way to the former Soviet Republic of Belarus.
Moscow and Minsk are planning a joint military exercise in Belarus from February 10-20, which has raised concerns in the West over the current Ukraine crisis.
The maneuver is to be held in southern Belarus, which borders Ukraine.
The US State Department has expressed concern that Moscow could station troops in Belarus and attack Ukraine from there under the guise of the maneuvers.
Foreign Minister Baerbock is going to Ukraine again
Various Western countries have recently repeatedly expressed concern about the tense situation in the Ukraine conflict.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has now announced that she will be traveling to Kiev with her French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian at the beginning of February.
The visit is about "our commitment to the inviolability of Ukraine" and solidarity with the people there, Baerbock wrote on Twitter.
In a telephone conversation with Le Drian, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba thanked Paris for the decision not to fly out the families of French embassy staff in Kiev.
The USA, Canada, Great Britain and Australia had asked the families of their diplomats to leave Ukraine.
According to Ukraine's foreign ministry, both Kuleba and Le Drian stressed the need to "refrain from taking steps that could fuel fears in Ukrainian society" and undermine "the financial stability" of the post-Soviet country.
In addition, it was "important to be vigilant and resolute in contacts with the Russian side."
Kremlin denies attack plans
According to Western sources, Russia has massed more than 100,000 soldiers on the Ukrainian border. The West is concerned that Russia is preparing to invade the neighboring country after annexing Crimea in 2014. France, meanwhile, is planning to send several hundred troops to Romania as part of a possible defensive operation on NATO's eastern flank. Defense Minister Florence Parly told France Inter radio on Saturday.
The Kremlin denies plans to attack, but at the same time argues that it feels threatened by Ukraine and NATO.
President Vladimir Putin is therefore demanding written commitments from NATO, for example to refrain from further eastward expansion.
The US and its western allies reject this.
Efforts to defuse the conflict have been going on for weeks.
tfb/dpa/AFP