First it was “Russia invades Crimea!!” and now it’s “Russia amassing troops at Ukraine border!!” No evidence for either, but if you question the neo-Stalinist line you will be ridiculed as a Putinbot and/or a gullible fool for Soviet, I mean Russian, propaganda.
Meanwhile in Russia, on the Ukrainian border …
Nonetheless, let’s look at what facts there are. Here’s Britain’s Telegraph, a vociferously right-wing publication, but even they come up empty on Russian troops on the border:
But the Russian invasion force – if it is here – is very well camouflaged. As the fog lifted, murky shapes were revealed as trees, houses and old Lada cars. No tanks emerged from the gloom, no suspicious flights of helicopters passed overhead, and no green painted trucks rumbled down the roads.
In a 200 mile trip along the border region, the only Russian armour on display in this flat landscape was of a much older vintage, and stood on plinths in town squares.
The U.S.-empire-friendly New York Times also tried to find a build up and couldn’t:
But in and around Belgorod, which sits a scant 40 miles from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and a likely target in case of an invasion, any increased military presence is largely kept out of the public eye. In a region that appears far from being on the brink of war, life continues as normal here, and many residents [dismiss] reports of a buildup as rumors set to discredit Russia.
… ‘Show me the tanks first, show me anything here that proves all this, and then we can talk about an invasion,’ said Pyotr Kudryavtsev, a retiree walking away from the tracks near the Vesyolaya Lopan station south of Belgorod, where scores of military vehicles were filmed being unloaded on March 12. Mr. Kudryavtsev, like other locals interviewed, denied this, saying that the heavy tracks in the mud close to the rails belonged to construction vehicles.
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