Washington : Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine has been expanded to include blood supplies as well as other medical supplies that will allow it to treat casualties, in another leading indicator of Moscow military preparationthree US officials told Reuters.
Current and former US officials say concrete indicators such as blood supply are important in determining whether Moscow Will be ready to attack if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to do so.
The disclosure of the blood supply by US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, adds yet another context to rising US warnings that Russia may be preparing for a new invasion of Ukraine as it gathers more than 100,000 troops near its borders. does.
These warnings included President Joe Biden’s prediction that a Russian attack was likely and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks that Russia could launch a new attack on Ukraine at “very little notice”.
the Pentagon first accepted The deployment of “medical aid” as part of the creation of Russia. But the disclosure of the blood supply adds a level of detail that experts say is critical to determining Russian military readiness.
Ben Hodges, a retired American lieutenant general at the Center for European Policy Analysis Research Institute, said, “It doesn’t guarantee that there’s going to be another attack, but you won’t launch another attack unless you have that hand.” Don’t be.”
The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hannah Malayar denied this information.
“This information is not true. This kind of ‘news’ is an element of information and psychological warfare. The purpose of such information is to spread panic and fear in our society,” he said on Facebook.
On Friday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the “feeling abroad” that the war had already begun. “We don’t need this panic,” he told reporters in Kiev.
A White House spokesman did not immediately comment on any Russian movement of the blood supply, but noted repeated public US warnings about Russian military preparedness.
The Pentagon declined to discuss the intelligence assessment.
security demands
Three US officials who spoke about the blood supply declined to say specifically when the United States had traced their movement to structures near Ukraine. However, two of them said it was within recent weeks.
Russian officials have repeatedly denied plans to attack. But Moscow says it is under threat from Kiev’s growing ties with the West.
Eight years ago it annexed Crimea and supported separatist forces that occupied large parts of eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s security demands, presented in December, include ending further NATO expansion, preventing Ukraine from ever joining, and withdrawing coalition forces and weapons from Eastern European countries that joined after the Cold War. Were.
Putin said on Friday that the United States and NATO had not addressed Russia’s main security demands in their standoff over Ukraine, but Moscow was ready to talk.
Biden has said he will not send American or Allied troops to fight Russia in Ukraine, the White House said, but said in a phone call Thursday from Ukraine’s Zelensky that Washington would be in trouble if Russia invades the former Soviet state. And his allies are ready to give a decisive answer.
The United States and its allies have said Russia will face tough economic sanctions if it attacks Ukraine.
Western countries have already imposed repeated economic sanctions since Russian troops occupied and occupied Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.
But such moves have had little effect on Russian policy, with Moscow, Europe’s main energy supplier, calculating that the West would devalue moves serious enough to interfere with gas exports.
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.
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