As Russia stoked hopes of a diplomatic solution and claimed to be pulling back forces from the Ukrainian border, U.S. and NATO officials accused Moscow of building up troops instead.
By Chibuike Leonard Iwuoha
KYIV, Ukraine — Tensions over Ukraine abruptly ratcheted up on Wednesday as Western officials accused Russia of lying about whether it had really begun pulling back troops from the Ukrainian border.
After days marked by flickers of hope that the conflict might be resolved peacefully, a senior American official, who refused to be quoted by name, told reporters that far from winding down its deployment, Moscow had added more than 7,000 combatants. Western allies expressed similar doubts about the Russian claims.
The American official directly accused Russia of lying, saying there was fresh evidence it was mobilizing for war.
British military officials said Wednesday they had spotted Russian armored vehicles, helicopters and a field hospital moving toward Ukraine’s border.
“Contrary to their claims, Russia continues to build up military capabilities near Ukraine,” Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull, the British chief of defense intelligence, said in a statement. “Russia has the military mass in place to conduct an invasion of Ukraine.”
The Western warnings contrasted sharply with Russia’s attempts to show that it was de-escalating.
Only hours earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry had released a video of a military convoy departing Crimea over the 12-mile bridge to Russia that President Vladimir V. Putin ordered built after the peninsula’s 2014 annexation. And the Kremlin’s spokesman praised the United States for being willing to negotiate and for offering constructive ideas.
With the sudden turn of events Wednesday night, the outlines of any diplomatic solution to the crisis once again looked very hard to discern.
In recent days, American officials had pointedly declined to accept Russian claims of a pullback.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, in an interview on MSNBC, said that the military units critical for an invasion force were continuing to move “toward the border, not away from the border.”
To some extent, the battle between the West and Moscow over Ukraine has been one of signaling. To keep international pressure on Russia high, the United States has repeatedly declared that an invasion was near, even imminent. Moscow, in turn, has repeatedly accused Washington of exaggerating the threat.
But beyond the verbal dueling, real troops have been repositioned.
In Brussels, defense ministers from the NATO countries discussed ways to reinforce military positions on its eastern perimeter, while the group’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said he also saw nothing to support Russia’s claim of a drawdown. “What we see is that Russian troops are moving into position,” Mr. Stoltenberg said.
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