NATO revealed satellite photographs that the western military alliance says show as many as 40,000 combat-ready Russian troops deployed along the border with Eastern Ukraine, along with fighter jets, tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery – all ready for action. 

“This is a force that is very capable, at high readiness, and, as we have illustrated through the imagery, is close to routes and lines of communication,” said British Brigadier Gary Deakin at NATO military headquarters at Mons in southern Belgium.  “It has the resources to be able to move quickly into Ukraine if it was ordered to do so,” he said.

Russia denied NATO’s photographic evidence, and claims the western alliance cherry picked images from last August.

NATO is not, however, considering sending any troops into Ukraine, a non-member, but is planning ways to bolster its forces in the Central and Eastern European member nations.  Which doesn’t mean that NATO is happy about Russia’s threats against Ukraine.

“Russia is stirring up ethnic tensions in eastern Ukraine and provoking unrest.  And Russia is using its military might to dictate that Ukraine should become a federal, neutral state.  That is a decision which only Ukraine as a sovereign state can make,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference in Prague.

Meanwhile, the Council of Europe has voted to suspend Russia’s membership from the European human rights watchdog because of the annexation of Crimea.