The Russian and Belarusian armies began maneuvers in Belarus on Thursday for ten days.
These maneuvers come at the height of Russian-Western tensions around Ukraine and as diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis continue.
The deployment of these soldiers has been denounced in Kiev as a means of "psychological pressure" used by Moscow, which has since November massed more than 100,000 soldiers on the eastern borders of Ukraine.
Troop buildup
"We believe that the accumulation of troops near our borders is a means of psychological pressure from our neighbors," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
For Paris, "everything leads us to think that it is a gesture of great violence, which worries us", declared on the public radio France Inter the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian.
He described the maneuvers as "extremely massive", observing: "there is a very significant build-up of exercises, especially on the very borders of Ukraine".
Russia is accused of being ready to carry out a new military operation against Kiev, after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, accusations rejected by the Kremlin which claims to want to ensure its security in the face of the behavior deemed hostile by Kiev and the NATO.
Diplomatic ballet
On the diplomatic front, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz receives the leaders of the Baltic countries, former Soviet republics members of NATO, in Berlin on Thursday.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who announced the dispatch of 350 more soldiers to Poland as part of a NATO mission, is going to Brussels where he will meet NATO officials before going in Warsaw, while its Foreign Minister Liz Truss is in Moscow.
The Russian-Belarusian exercises "are taking place with the objective of preparing to stop and repel external aggression as part of a defensive operation", assured the Russian Ministry of Defense in a press release.
The armies of Minsk and Moscow did not specify the number of soldiers and equipment participating in these maneuvers, but Westerners claim that 30,000 Russian soldiers have been deployed in Belarus as part of this.
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Conflict Ukraine – Russia LIVE: Russia launches military exercises with Belarus, a “gesture of great violence” for Paris…
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