Russia’s claim to be withdrawing troops from the border with Ukraine seems to be a “disinformation campaign” and the troops are instead making their final preparations to invade, a UK defence minister has said.
James Heappey, the armed forces minister, said Moscow was continuing to deploy thousands more soldiers to the region and building bridges across rivers that could be used as part of a military incursion into Ukraine.
Despite brief hopes of a respite in tensions after Vladimir Putin’s announcement on Tuesday that there would be a “partial” drawdown of forces, some Nato countries remained sceptical about how many of the roughly 130,000 troops had really been withdrawn.
There have been suggestions that the Kremlin has deployed a further 7,000 soldiers to the border, and Heappey said: “Worryingly what we’ve seen over the last 48 hours is not the reversal that has been announced in Moscow.”
He said he still hoped Russia was committing a “hugely expensive exercise” that would end up being a hoax to “wind us up”, but he admitted: “We’re on the threshold of a major war in Europe in which tens of thousands of people could die”.
Heappey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I fear that it is a disinformation campaign when we are seeing apparent footage of Russian troops moving away from the border. Because all of our indicators suggest that the buildup and the preparations continue.”
He said that equally as challenging as an immediate invasion would be Putin’s decision to “leave this military mass in place indefinitely”, given the impact it would have on Ukraine’s internal security, political system and economy.
Earlier, Heappey told Times Radio that having seen “open source intelligence”, key “combat enablers” being moved by Russia to the Ukrainian border was one of a number of indications to “suggest the final preparations are being made for them to invade”.
The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, will embark on another tour of European countries this week, visiting Ukraine, Poland and Germany in an effort to present a united front among western states to dissuade Russia from invading.
A senior US official said late on Wednesday that Russia’s claims about withdrawing troops were false and that Moscow had “increased its troop presence along the Ukrainian border by as many as 7,000 troops”, many of them arriving in the past 24 hours.
“Every indication we have now is they mean only to publicly offer to talk and make claims about de-escalation while privately mobilising for war,” the official said.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said earlier on Wednesday that Russia was continuing to send troops to what is now the biggest concentration of forces in Europe since the cold war.
Stoltenberg said the military alliance was considering deploying further battle groups in eastern and central Europe, to complement those established in 2014 in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, led by the UK, Canada, Germany and the US. The French government has offered to lead a force in Romania.
“We will have advice from the military commanders within weeks and we will make a decision after that,” Stoltenberg said. “What we see today is that Russia maintains a massive invasion force ready to attack with high-end capabilities from Crimea to Belarus.”
On Thursday he said Nato would prepare for “the new normal” of Russia showing “a disregard for the principles underpinning European security” and threatening force “in pursuit of its objectives”.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed all claims of reinforcements and criticised Stoltenberg, who is to leave his Nato post at the end of September to become chief of the Norwegian central bank.
Zakharova said: “Frankly, I can tell you the truth. We’re not interested in these statements made by Stoltenberg, who is either Nato secretary general or a banker, I haven’t figured out which yet. We’re no longer interested in them. He is not a person whose statements Moscow would consider serious arguments. He is a Nato has-been now.”
