The U.S. envoy to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe on Friday detailed reports that up to a whopping 190,000 Russian troops are now stationed along the Ukrainian border.
Ambassador Michael Carpenter said the OSCE has found evidence that between 169,000 and 190,000 Russian troops are now at the border, up from the around 100,000 thought to be in the region at the end of last month.
The numbers come from troops counted in Belarus and Crimea, as well as the Russian National Guard and Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine, The Hill reports.
“Colleagues, this is the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the Second World War,” Carpenter said.
Indeed, as previously reported by Human Events News, this report comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed he would pull back.
“We are aware that Russia is intent on creating a pretext to justify an invasion into Ukraine,” Carpenter said. “Therefore, we must resolutely rebut the false narrative about a Ukrainian ‘escalation,’ which finds no evidence whatsoever in the reports of the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission.”