Ukraine crisis: Russian troop build-up at border is progressing rapidly

Created: 2022-02-06 09:02

By: Christian Stör

According to the US, 70 percent of the Russian troops needed to invade Ukraine are already there.

The news ticker on the Ukraine crisis.

• Diplomatic efforts continue in the conflict between Russia* and Ukraine.

• Russia's President Vladimir Putin* and the USA* accuse each other of provocation.

• All information about the situation in Ukraine in our news ticker.

KIEV/Washington, DC - Relations between the West and Russia remain extremely strained over the Ukraine crisis.

While the two literature Nobel Prize winners Herta Müller (68) and Svetlana Alexievich (73) have spoken out in favor of German arms deliveries to Ukraine, the US secret services assume that Russia has already received 70 percent of the support for a large-scale invasion of Ukraine needed troops to the border.

There is talk of 110,000 soldiers stationed on the border with Ukraine.

According to the United States, the increase in Russian troops is progressing so quickly that the full force of 150,000 soldiers could be ready for an invasion by mid-February.

But US intelligence doesn't know everything.

It is therefore still completely unclear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is actually planning an invasion of the neighboring country.

Putin wants to keep all options open, the US experts have now explained.

An invasion limited to the separatist region of Donbass is conceivable, but also a large-scale, comprehensive invasion.

Russia itself denies any plans of attack.

Demonstrators with Ukrainian national flags protest against the stationing of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine.

© Evgeniy Maloletka/dpa

Ukraine crisis: USA assumes many victims in possible war

In the event of a major attack, Russia could take the Ukrainian capital Kiev and overthrow President Volodymyr Zelenskyy within 48 hours, according to the US intelligence services.

In addition, high numbers of civilian and military casualties are to be expected if Russian troops invade Ukraine.

Between 25,000 and 50,000 people could die among Ukraine's civilian population alone, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed senior US government officials.

According to their estimates, the Ukrainian military would have to reckon with up to 25,000 dead, while up to 10,000 casualties could be expected on the Russian side.

In addition, such an attack could drive up to five million people to flee, most of whom would flee to neighboring Poland.

The second half of February was considered a possible time for the invasion – after the end of the 2022 Olympics* in Beijing*.

By then, the ground in Ukraine would have hardened due to frost, it said.

However, the US secret services were unable to say whether the Olympic peace treaty, to which the powers of this world hardly feel bound anyway, plays a role in Vladimir Putin's deliberations.

(cs/dpa/afp)