President Biden convenes a meeting of the National Security Council in the White House Situation Room to discuss the unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine.
In late March–early April 2021, the Russian military moved large quantities of arms and equipment from western and central Russia, and as far away as Siberia, into occupied Crimea and the Pogonovo training facility 17 km south of Voronezh.[417][418] A Janes intelligence specialist identified fourteen Russian military units from the Central Military District that had moved into the vicinity of the Russo-Ukrainian border, and called it the largest unannounced military movement since the 2014 invasion of Crimea.[419] Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Ruslan Khomchak said that Russia has stationed twenty-eight BTGs (battalion tactical groups) along the border, and that it was expected that twenty-five more were to be brought in,[420] including in Bryansk and Voronezh oblasts in Russia's Western Military District. The following day, Russian state news agency TASS reported that fifty of its BTGs consisting of 15,000 soldiers were massed for drills in the Southern Military District, which includes occupied Crimea and also borders the Donbas conflict zone.[421] By 9 April, the head of the Ukrainian border guard estimated that 85,000 Russian soldiers were already in Crimea or within 40 kilometres (25 mi) of the Ukrainian border.[422] Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to American president Joe Biden and urged NATO members to speed up Ukraine's request for membership.[423][424] A Kremlin spokesman said that Russian military movements pose no threat,[425] but Russian official Dmitry Kozak warned that Russian forces could act to "defend" Russian citizens in Ukraine, and any escalation of the conflict would mean "the beginning of the end of Ukraine" – "not a shot in the leg, but in the face".[426][427] At the time some half a million people in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic had been issued with Russian passports since fighting broke out in 2014.
Size: 2400px × 1600px
Location: The White House, Washington, DC
Photo credit: © American Photo Archive / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
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