Russian military exercises in Belarus will continue, Minsk announced Sunday, leaving Moscow with a large force near the northern Ukraine border as Western powers warn of an imminent invasion.
The announcement came as French President Emmanuel Macron called Russia’s Vladimir Putin for talks the Elysée described as “the last possible and necessary efforts to avoid a major conflict in Ukraine.”
Moscow had previously said the 30,000 troops it has in Belarus were simply carrying out readiness drills with its ally, which would be finished by February 20, allowing the Russians to head back to their bases.
But, as the day arrived for the operation to end, the Belarus defense ministry said Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko had decided to “continue inspections,” citing increased military activity on their shared borders and an alleged “escalation” in east Ukraine.
The move will be seen as a further tightening of the screws on Ukraine, already facing increased shelling from Russian-backed separatist rebels and a force of what Western capitals says is more than 150,000 Russian personnel on its borders.
It will also be seen as a rebuff to efforts by leaders like Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz to urge their Russian counterpart to pull back from the brink of war.
More bombardments were heard by AFP reporters overnight close to the frontline between government forces and the Moscow-backed rebels who hold parts of the districts of Lugansk and Donetsk.
“Every indication indicates that Russia is planning a full-fledged attack against Ukraine,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said, echoing US President Joe Biden, who believes the invasion is imminent.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Russia is preparing to plunge Europe into its worst conflict since World War II, warning that any invasion of Ukraine would freeze Moscow out of global finance.
“The fact is that all the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun,” he said in a BBC interview broadcast Sunday from the Munich Security Conference, after two Ukrainian soldiers were killed in attacks around rebel-held enclaves.