US SEES NO SIGN OF RUSSIAN PULLBACK, SAYS BLINKEN

Wed 16 February 2022:

Blinken says Washington has not seen any evidence of a pullback of Russian troops from around Ukraine’s borders and that Moscow has, on the contrary, been moving critical units closer to the area.

“There’s what Russia says and then there’s what Russia does. And we haven’t seen any pullback of its forces,” the US secretary of state told US broadcaster MSNBC. “We continue to see critical units moving toward the border, not away from the border.”

“So what we need to see is exactly the opposite. We need to see these forces moving away.”

UK will double the number of troops in Estonia as part of NATO mission

Britain will double the size of the British force in Estonia as part of a NATO deployment and will send equipment, including tanks and armoured fighting vehicles.

“Alongside our NATO Allies, we are deploying troops and assets on land, sea and air to bolster European defences in response to the build-up of Russian military forces on the border of Ukraine,” British defence minister Ben Wallace said in a statement.

“NATO and our allies have been clear that an invasion of Ukraine will be met with severe consequences.”

Ukrainian security official suggests Russia behind cyberattacks

A senior official in Ukraine’s state security service has said only Russia would be interested in carrying out ongoing distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks being weathered by the country’s defence ministry and large state-owned banks.

“We know that the only country that is interested in such … attacks on our state, especially against the backdrop of massive panic about a possible military invasion, the only country that is interested is the Russian Federation,” Illya Vityuk said.

Vityuk, head of the cybersecurity department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said it was too early to identify specific perpetrators, however. The Kremlin has denied having any involvement in the cyberattacks.

Moscow mocks the West over invasion warning

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has made fun of Western officials for warning that today may be the date upon which Moscow would launch an attack on Ukraine.

“I’d like to ask if US and British sources of disinformation … could publish the schedule of our upcoming invasions for the year. I’d like to plan my holidays,” Zakharova wrote on social media.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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