Russia may increase the strength of its army on the western borders up to 500,000 troops.
For the time being, Russia has deployed as many as 100,000 troops and thousands of units of military hardware on the border with Ukraine. Many videos showing the transportation of military equipment from the eastern part of Russia towards the western borders have appeared on the internet recently. It appears that Russia is putting its troops on high alert against the background of a very high risk of provocations on the part of NATO.
Given the scale of the transfer of military hardware, it appears that Russia is taking efforts to build up the troops on its western borders to 500,000. Most of the Russian troops will thus be deployed in western regions of the country.
The videos that eyewitnesses made in different parts of the country show the railway transportation of tanks, multiple launch rocket systems, light armored vehicles, engineering vehicles, military trucks, field artillery, etc.
Earlier, many believed that the military hardware would be deployed on the border with Ukraine due to the risk of Ukraine's aggression against both Donbass and Crimea. It now appears that the Russian troops will be deployed in numerous military field camps along the entire western border, including even in Belarus, on the border with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
After the USA and NATO disregarded Russia's requirements at security talks, the Russian administration started taking active measures to get the country prepared for the defense of its borders.
Meanwhile, the United States believes that Russia has prepared a task force to carry out a false flag operation in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian military included in the group were trained for urban combat and the use of explosives, CNN reports with reference to an unnamed US official. According to the source, the Joe Biden administration believes that Russia may be preparing for an invasion of Ukraine, which could lead to massive violations of human rights and war crimes, should diplomats fail to achieve their goals in the talks.
On Thursday, January 13, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said during a briefing with reporters:
"Our intelligence community has developed information, which has now been downgraded, that Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating the pretext for an invasion," Sullivan said. "We saw this playbook in 2014. They are preparing this playbook again and we will have, the administration will have, further details on what we see as this potential laying of the pretext to share with the press over the course of the next 24 hours."