Russian President Vladimir Putin will reportedly oversee new military drills at the border of Ukraine, BBC News reports.
What’s happening: A spokesman with the Kremlin told BBC News that Russia will conduct new missile tests and military drills in the coming days.
- Putin will oversee the drills from the “situation center,” the spokesman said, according to BBC News.
- “The strategic containment forces’ exercise was planned in advance to check the preparedness of military command organs, missile launch crews, naval ships’ and strategic missile carriers’ crews to perform the tasks that have been set, as well as the reliability of armaments of the strategic nuclear and non-nuclear forces,” said the Russian defense ministry, according to BBC News.
Why it matters: The continued military drills are a sign that “the Kremlin is possibly planning an invasion of Ukraine,” per Radio Free Europe.
Catching up: U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Thursday morning that the U.S. has seen signs that Russia is moving toward an “imminent invasion” of Ukraine in the coming days, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
- “Our goal is to convey the gravity of the situation. The evidence on the ground is that Russia is moving towards an imminent invasion,” she said, according to CNN.
The reaction: Per CNBC, the White House said Wednesday that these military exercises are “certainly more of an escalatory and not a de-escalatory action.”