President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of concentrating its troops in the combat zone in Donbas. He said this in his interview with the American TV channel NBS, as was published on the Kremlin's official website.
“Look, first, Ukraine itself constantly – and I think is still doing that – kept bringing personnel and military equipment to the conflict area in the southeast of Ukraine, Donbass. That's one. Two is that we conducted exercises in our territory and not just in the south of the Russian Federation but also in the Far East and in the north, in the Arctic,” Putin stated answering the question of whether the deployment of 100.000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border was an attempt to get Washington’s attention.
In addition, he stated that akin military exercises were being held in different parts of the Russian Federation just as the US was conducting military exercises in Alaska. After that, he accused the West of playing a “wargame” against Russia.
“What is happening now? Now, at our southern borders, there is a war game, Defender Europe, 40,000 personnel, 15,000 units of military equipment. Part of them has been airlifted from the US continent directly to our borders. Did we airlift any of our military technology to the US borders? No, we did not,” he stated.