Russia still building forces on Ukraine border, Says TopNato official.

Russia is building up its military forces on Ukraine’s border with more troops on their way, contradicting Moscow’s claims of a drawdown, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said.

Despite suggestions from the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday that a “partial” withdrawal was in effect, Stoltenberg warned that Russian military capability was only increasing in number and strength.

The former Norwegian prime minister said Nato needed to be “prepared for the worst” while holding out hope that the signalling from Putin in recent days was evidence of a sincere desire to find a diplomatic way through the crisis

Before a two-day meeting of Nato’s 30 defence ministers, Stoltenberg told reporters at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels: “So far we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground. On the contrary, it appears that Russia continues the military buildup.

“We are, of course, monitoring very closely what Russia does in and around Ukraine. What we see is that they have increased the number of troops and more troops are on their way and so, so far, no de-escalation.

“But of course, we hear all the messages about diplomacy and we are ready to engage in diplomatic efforts with Russia.”

Stoltenberg said, however, that the evidence on the ground “contradicts the message of real diplomatic efforts”.

During a press conference with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin told reporters that he was undertaking “a partial withdrawal of troops from the areas of our exercises”.

On Wednesday, the Russian defence ministry released footage on its Zvezda television channel reportedly showing tanks, armoured personnel carriers and mobile artillery elements of the 42nd motorised rifle division crossing the Crimean bridge and heading away from the peninsular.

Izvestia, a Russian newspaper with sources in the defence ministry, reported that the units returning to their bases were the 3rd, 42nd, and 150th motorised rifle divisions.Analysts noted, however, that two of the three of those divisions are stationed very close to Ukraine.The 3rd motorised rifle division has permanent bases to the northeast of Ukraine while the 150th motorised rifle division is garrisoned near Rostov-on-Don, just to Ukraine’s southeast.

Just the 42nd motorised rifle division would be taking a longer trip back to Chechnya, if the units return to their permanent bases.Ruslan Leviev, of the open source Conflict Intelligence Team, drafted a map of their permanent bases, noting that some of the troops were “being withdrawn in the direction of the border with Ukraine.”

The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Nato suffered from a “handicap” that prevented it from “soberly assessing the situation”.US president, Joe Biden, said in an address on Tuesday that he believed that more than 150,000 Russian troops remained near Ukraine’s borders, more than 60% of the country’s ground forces.