Russian President Vladimir Putin is continuing to ready his forces in and around Ukraine for an invasion.
The Russian leader has amassed “dang near 100%” of the troops he would need to launch an incursion, while 80% of them are in “ready position” for such an order, a senior defense official told reporters on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Putin recognized two occupied regions — the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic — as independent in Ukraine, and he ordered troops to go into those regions. Both moves were considered significant escalations in the weekslong standoff between Russia and Ukraine, which has the backing of the Western world.
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Russian troops have been in the occupied Donbas region since 2014, which led to contradictions from the Biden administration as to whether Russia had invaded Ukraine in recent days.
The defense official noted that the United States could not confirm whether new Russian troops had crossed into the occupied region, though the individual confirmed that they hadn’t seen evidence of Russian troops leaving those regions and crossing into other, unoccupied, parts of Ukraine.
“We still cannot confirm that Russian military forces had moved into the Donbas areas,” the official said, later specifying that he was talking about “additional Russian military forces.”
The Russian military has between roughly 170,000 and 190,000 troops amassed along Ukrainian borders, U.S. officials have said in recent days, though they have chosen not to narrow the range down.
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The official also provided some specifics regarding Russia’s military capabilities.
They have “significant offensive missile capability to offensive ground power,” he added. “He has more than two dozen warships in the Black Sea. The majority of them are surface combatants. He has a cruise missile capability. He’s got ballistic missile capability arrayed. He’s got armor, artillery, certainly infantries. He’s got special forces.”
“It is our assessment that he is fully prepared to conduct a large-scale invasion and … that is a likely option.”
Following Putin’s remarks on the Donbas region, President Joe Biden announced a variety of sanctions against Russian elites and their families, financial institutions, the state development cooperation VEB, and Russia’s military bank.
