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Moscow says U.S. stoking Ukraine tensions, NATO points to Russian drills

04 February 2022 02:14 (UTC +04:00)

Russia accused the United States on Thursday of ramping up tensions and ignoring Moscow's calls to ease a standoff over Ukraine, a day after Washington announced it would send nearly 3,000 extra troops to Poland and Romania, APA reports quoting Reuters.

NATO meanwhile said Russia had stepped up deployments to Ukraine's northern neighbour Belarus in recent days and was expected to have 30,000 troops there for joint military drills that the White House called an escalation.

Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and Western countries say they fear Moscow may be planning to invade.

Russia denies this but has said it could take unspecified military action unless its security demands are met.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the U.S. troop deployments on a conference call with reporters on Thursday.

"It's obvious that these are not steps aimed at de-escalating tensions, but on the contrary they are actions that lead to increasing tension," he said.