Russia poised to invade, NATO general says
Plan underway to boost military ties with Eastern European NATO members
BRUSSELS — NATO’s top commander said Wednesday that the 40,000 troops Russia has within striking distance of Ukraine are poised to attack on 12 hours’ notice and could accomplish their military objectives within three to five days.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia told Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Monday that the Kremlin was beginning to withdraw troops from the border area near Ukraine.
But the NATO commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, said in an interview with The New York Times that so far only a single battalion, a force of 400 to 500 troops, is on the move and that NATO intelligence could not say whether it was actually being withdrawn.
“What we can say now is that we do see a battalion size unit moving, but what we can’t confirm is that it is leaving the battlefield,” said Breedlove, of the U.S. air force. “Whether that movement is aft to a less belligerent configuration or returning to barracks, we do not see that.”
Breedlove said the Russian force that remains is a potent mix of warplanes, helicopter units, artillery, infantry and commandos with field hospitals and sufficient logistics to sustain an incursion into Ukraine.
“We believe that it can move within 12 hours,” he said. “Essentially the force is ready to go. We believe it could accomplish its objective between three to five days,” he said.
Breedlove said the Russian presence might be intended as a “coercive force” during the West’s talks with Russia about Ukraine’s future and as Ukraine prepares for a presidential election in late May.
If the Kremlin decides to intervene militarily, Breedlove added, the force could be used to establish a land link to Crimea, the peninsula in southern Ukraine that Russia annexed last month, so that it does not have to supply it by sea. The Russian force is also capable, he said, of carrying out a thrust to Odessa, moving to Transnistria, the Russian enclave in Moldova, or intervening in areas in eastern Ukraine.
“I think they have all the opportunities and they can make whatever decision they want,” Breedlove added. “This is a very large, very well-equipped force to be called an exercise.”
In January, the United States informed NATO allies that Russia had tested a ground-launched cruise missile, raising serious questions about Moscow’s compliance with its arms control obligations.
U.S. officials have sought without success to resolve the issue with the Russians, and the Obama administration is reviewing whether to formally declare the test to be a violation of a 1987 treaty that bans medium-range missiles.
While making it clear that he was not prejudging the outcome of that review, Breedlove described the Russia missile test as a militarily significant development.
“A weapon capability that violates the INF, that is introduced into the greater European land mass is absolutely a tool that will have to be dealt with,” he said, using the initials of the Intermediaterange Nuclear Forces Treaty.
“I would not judge how the alliance will choose to react, but I would say they will have to consider what to do about it,” he said. “It can’t go unanswered.”
Breedlove said he did not know if the Russians had deployed the cruise missile, adding that this would be hard to determine since it resembles permitted shortrange systems.
A former F-16 pilot, Breedlove commanded Air Force units in Europe before he was named the NATO commander in the spring of 2013.
Discussing the Russian intervention in Crimea, Breedlove said Russia used a military exercise to mask its invasion preparations. Once its intervention was underway, he said, Russian forces moved swiftly to cut telephone cables, jam communications and engage in cyberwarfare to isolate the Ukrainian military on the peninsula.
“They disconnected the Ukrainian forces in Crimea from their command and control,” he said. The bigger challenge the alliance faces, he said, is the Russian military’s use of “snap” exercises to rehearse its ability to assemble substantial combat power in a short period of time.
“They are absolutely able to bring great force to a position of readiness,” Breedlove said. “That is something that we have to think about: what does that mean geo-strategically that we now have a nation that can produce this ready force and now has demonstrated that it will use that ready force to go across a sovereign boundary.”
On Tuesday, NATO foreign ministers directed Breedlove to develop a plan to strengthen the alliance’s military ties with its Eastern European members by mid-April.
Breedlove said he planned to present options, along with his own recommendations, for strengthening the alliance’s air, sea and land capabilities to defend these nations without being provocative.
The air-power options, he said, include aircraft that could protect the air space of NATO nations that border Russia as well as planes that could attack forces on the ground. Naval options include increasing the alliance’s presence in the Baltic Sea and establishing a NATO presence in the Black Sea.
Breedlove said that he would not exclude the continuous deployment of land forces, a step that Baltic and East European members would welcome. One possibility may be moving a U.S. combat brigade from Fort Hood, Tex., to Europe.
“It is an option,” he said.