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Russian President Vladimir Putin
Photo: Alexei Nikolsky / dpa
Amid the massive tensions in the Ukraine crisis, Russia has announced the start of another major maneuver for Saturday.
The military exercise involving strategic troops and ballistic missiles will be personally overseen by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, the Defense Ministry said in Moscow.
The USA convened a virtual crisis summit for Friday, which should be attended by the EU and NATO leaders as well as the heads of state and government of Germany, France and other western countries.
According to the Kremlin, the air force, army units from the southern military district and the Black Sea and North Sea fleets will be involved in the maneuvers on Saturday.
In the past few days, Russia had announced several partial withdrawals of troops gathered near the Ukrainian border.
However, there are great doubts in the West about the truthfulness of these announcements.
Washington fears false flag attack
US President Biden accused Moscow on Thursday of not withdrawing soldiers from the region, but of having continued to increase troops.
The Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov said on Friday in front of the parliament in Kiev that there are now around 149,000 Russian soldiers on the Russian borders with Ukraine - including forces of the Russian Air Force and Navy.
Washington fears a so-called false flag attack in Ukraine.
Before Moscow would attack Ukraine, it would create a pretext for it - such as an act of violence for which Ukraine would be held responsible.
In a short-term speech before the UN Security Council, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US intelligence services believe Russia could order an attack on the neighboring country "in the coming days".
Blinken referred to fake news that Russian media had been spreading for days about alleged ethnic cleansing or "genocide" of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.
Despite the considerable tensions, Blinken wants to meet his Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov in Europe next week, according to his ministry.
Blinken accepted the Russian side's proposed date for the end of next week on the condition that "there is no Russian invasion of Ukraine," a spokesman said.
According to Western information, Russia had massed well over 100,000 soldiers along with tanks and other heavy military equipment on the Ukrainian border in the past few weeks.
The Kremlin rejects any plans of attack and at the same time accuses Ukraine and NATO of "provocations".
In the embattled eastern Ukraine, meanwhile, violence has been increasing for days.
AFP reporters on Friday reported attacks near the village of Stanyzia-Luhanska, where a kindergarten and more than 20 residential buildings had been damaged on Thursday.
The pro-Russian fighters in the region and the Ukrainian army had previously accused each other of violating a fragile ceasefire several times during the night.
Kremlin spokesman worried
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that he was "very concerned" about the situation in eastern Ukraine.
"What is happening in Donbass is very worrying and potentially very dangerous," he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov has denied Russian allegations that his country is planning military action against the separatists in eastern Ukraine or Crimea.
Ukraine is merely strengthening its "defense," Resnikov emphasized.
The latest escalation in the Ukraine crisis coincides with the start of the 58th Munich Security Conference this Friday.
The outgoing head of the conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, described Russia's "reproach about the feeling of a threat" from a possible future NATO membership of Ukraine in the morning in the ARD "Morgenmagazin" as "very, very far-fetched".
He underscored that NATO had not taken any further steps "towards eastward enlargement" since 2004.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) regretted that there would be no talks with Russian representatives in Munich.
On Friday, she called for "serious steps towards de-escalation" from Moscow.
till/AFP