Russia could take Ukraine in three days, warns NATO's top general
- The Times
- April 03, 2014
Rasmussen: it would be "historic mistake" for Russia to move further into Ukraine 1:23
NATO's chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen says further
Russian intervention in Ukraine would be an historic mistake that would
isolate Russia even more. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.
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Acting Minister of Defence of
Ukraine Michail Koval, right, and Olexander Turchynov, speaker of the
parliament and the interim president, attend military exercises in
Desna.
Source: AFP
RUSSIAN forces could slice their way across Ukraine and achieve a
series of key military objectives in little more than three days, NATO
has warned.
With 40,000 troops on the border, Russia had the forces in place
for a full-scale incursion, said General Philip Breedlove, NATO's
Supreme Allied Commander Europe.Its aims would probably include an incursion into southern Ukraine to establish a land corridor to Crimea, pushing beyond Crimea to Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odessa and connecting to Transdniestria, the mainly Russian-speaking separatist region of Moldova to the west of Ukraine.
His warning, the most specific yet from a US military commander, appeared to be part of an American effort to galvanise Europe to the threat in its backyard while also seeking to persuade President Putin that NATO was alive to his manoeuvrings.
John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, visited Brussels yesterday and urged EU ministers to step up plans to send gas to Ukraine from Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.
He said that his country's fracking revolution meant that it would be able to export enough gas to meet Europe's needs by 2015, as he warned Moscow against using energy as a weapon.
Moscow returned rhetorical fire, criticising NATO's decision to stop all civilian and military co-operation with Russia in protest at Mr Putin's annexation of Crimea, and likening it to a Cold War gesture.
General Breedlove said that the Russian forces on Ukraine's eastern border included aircraft support as well as field hospitals and electronic warfare capabilities. "This is a very large and very capable and very ready force," he said.
"We think it is ready to go and we think it could accomplish its objectives in between three and five days if directed to make the actions."
He said that the force could move within 12 hours of receiving orders from the Kremlin. "So essentially they could move right away."
General Breedlove said that NATO's defensive air and sea plans were advanced, but that plans were needed for European land forces. Russia criticised NATO for this week's decision to suspend the 28-nation alliance's collaboration with the Kremlin.
It has said that it has no intention of further invading its neighbour, although it has asserted a right to intervene to protect ethnic Russians.
Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed Ukrainian President now in exile in Russia, said that he did not approve of Crimea leaving Ukraine, but blamed the new authorities in Kiev.
President Putin, 61, has finalised his divorce from his wife of 30 years, two years after officially separating. He and Lyudmila, 56, have two daughters.
The Times
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/russia-could-take-ukraine-in-three-days-warns-natos-top-general/story-fnb64oi6-1226873358703#
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