Exclusive: Russia masses heavy firepower on border with Ukraine - witness
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Russia's army is massing troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry including mobile rocket launchers, tanks and artillery at a makeshift base near the border with Ukraine, a Reuters reporter saw this week.
Many of the vehicles have number plates and identifying marks removed while many of the servicemen had taken insignia off their fatigues. As such, they match the appearance of some of the forces spotted in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev and its Western allies allege are covert Russian detachments.
The scene at the base on the Kuzminsky firing range, around 50 km (30 miles) from the border, offers some of the clearest evidence to date of what appeared to be a concerted Russian military build-up in the area.
Earlier this month, NATO military commander General Philip Breedlove said he believed the separatists were taking advantage of a ceasefire that came into force in February to re-arm and prepare for a new offensive. However, he gave no specifics.
Russia denies that its military is involved in the conflict in Ukraine's east, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting forces loyal to the pro-Western government in Kiev.
Russia's defense ministry said it had no immediate comment about the build-up. Several soldiers said they had been sent to the base for simple military exercises, suggesting their presence was unconnected to the situation in Ukraine.
Asked by Reuters if large numbers of unmarked weaponry and troops without insignia at the border indicated that Russia planned to invade Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a conference call with reporters:
"I find the wording of this question, 'if an invasion is being prepared', inappropriate as such."
The weapons being delivered there included Uragan multiple rocket launchers, tanks and self-propelled howitzers -- all weapon types that have been used in the conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kiev's forces and separatists.
The amount of military hardware at the base was about three times greater than in March this year, when Reuters journalists were previously in the area. At that time, only a few dozen pieces of equipment were in view.
Over the course of fours days starting on Saturday, Reuters saw four goods trains with military vehicles and troops arriving at a rail station in the Rostov region of southern Russia, with at least two trainloads traveling on by road to the base.
A large section of dirt road leading across the steppe from the Kuzminsky range to the Ukrainian border had been freshly repaired, making it more passable for heavy vehicles.
The road leads to a quiet border crossing typically only used by local residents. On the other side is Ukraine's Luhansk region, which is controlled by separatists and has been the scene of intense fighting.
MARCHING ORDERS
Valentina Melnikova, a human rights campaigner who works closely with families of Russian servicemen, said she had information that Rostov region was being used as a staging post for troops on their way to Ukraine.
She said the information came from the mother of a serviceman stationed in the town of Totskoye, in the Orenburg region near Russia's border with Kazakhstan.
Melnikova said the serviceman heard from commanders that "they are going to be transferred to Rostov region after May 20 and then to Ukraine. They signed papers about non-disclosure of information and about acting voluntarily.
"Of course it was an order. How could it be voluntarily? They are servicemen," said Melnikova, who runs the Moscow-based Alliance of Soldiers' Mothers Committees.
Her account could not be independently verified by Reuters.
In some cases where Russian citizens have been captured in Ukraine by forces loyal to Kiev, Russian officials have said they were there of their own accord and were either on leave from the armed forces or had quit the military.
More military hardware trundles into the Matveev Kurgan railway station on goods trains every day.
A train that pulled in on Tuesday was carrying 16 T-72 tanks, and a number of military trucks.
A local woman who was at the station with a pre-school age girl looked at the tanks on flat-bed rail cars, sighed, and said: "Nothing surprises me any more."
Over the four days, trains arrived delivering a total of at least 26 tanks, about 30 Uragan launchers, dozens of trucks as well as several armored personnel carriers and self-propelled howitzers.
On two occasions, after the trains had been unloaded, reporters followed the column of vehicles to the firing range -- a location that has already been linked indirectly to the fighting in Ukraine.
Bellingcat, a British-based group of volunteers who use social media to investigate conflicts, analyzed postings by Russian soldiers on social network accounts, including geo-location tags on photos, and concluded that some of those in Ukraine had earlier been at the Kuzminsky range.
A former Russian soldier said last year, when he was on active military service, that he underwent training at the range and was later sent up to the Ukrainian border. Once at the border he was ordered to fire Grad rockets, although he said he could not be certain they were fired into Ukraine. He also said some members of his unit had crossed into Ukraine.
"That's a very big firing range. We studied for two weeks, we had a quick course. After that we got the order and went to the border," said the former soldier, who did not want to be identified because the operation has not been made public.
Exclusive: Russia masses heavy firepower on border with Ukraine - witness | Reuters
Vladimir Putin declares all Russian military deaths state secrets
Vladimir Putin has declared that all military deaths will be classified as state secrets not just in times of war but also in peace – a move that activists worry might further discourage the reporting of Russian soldiers’ deaths in Ukraine.
The Russian president has amended a decree to extend the list of state secrets to include information on casualties during special operations when war has not been declared, among other changes. Previously, the list had only forbidden (pdf) “revealing personnel losses in wartime”. He has repeatedly denied any involvement of Russian troops in a pro-Russian rebellion in Ukraine.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that the changes were not connected to the conflict in Ukraine. Revealing state secrets is punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Rights advocate Valentina Melnikova, secretary of the Union of Soldiers’ Mothers Committees, said the decree simply legalised the common practice of withholding information on all military losses, which had been done since Soviet times.
“I don’t know what [the new decree] is connected with, but the bolsheviks and Russian authorities never revealed any casualty numbers, except after South Ossetia,” she said, referring to the 2008 conflict during which Russian troops established control of the Georgian breakaway region. “It was always considered a state secret. Now Putin has just made this official.”
Sergei Krivenko, a member of the presidential human rights council, said the decree “raises many questions” and could serve to intimidate activists, journalists or relatives who report the deaths of Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine.
“If we lived in a state governed by the rule of law, this decree would only affect officials. Those who have this information don’t have the right to publish it, that’s what this decree is about,” he said. “But in the situation we’re in now … almost any citizen can be punished for revealing information, so long as the authorities decide that this information hurts the country’s interests.”
Earlier this month, one of two Russian men who were captured by Ukrainian forces during a clash with pro-Russian rebels said on camera that he was a member of the Russian special forces. Coverage of Russian soldiers’ presence in Ukraine is virtually taboo on state-controlled television, which portrays Russians fighting there as volunteers.
At least 276 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, according to a list of names compiled by Open Russia, an organisation started by Kremlin critic and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Reuters witnessed Russian troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry near the border with Ukraine this week, providing evidence of a large-scale military buildup.
Also this month, colleagues of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered near the Kremlin in February, presented a report with evidence of Russian military operations in eastern Ukraine.
Relatives of dead servicemen and returned soldiers have been reluctant to speak out about the conflict. Activist Ilya Yashin told the Guardian that while working on the Nemtsov report he had met relatives of 17 soldiers from Ivanovo who were killed in Ukraine, but they had signed a pledge of secrecy and were afraid to go on record.
This week, US congressman Mac Thornberry said the Russian armed forces were “trying to hide their casualties” by deploying mobile crematoria to eastern Ukraine. Putin’s spokesman called the statement untrustworthy, and the US State Department reportedly declined to confirm the report.
Vladimir Putin declares all Russian military deaths state secrets | World news | The Guardian
