Russia planning massive military offensive against Ukraine ...

“We must prepare for all contingencies.”What you need to know about tensions between Ukraine and RussiaLavrov, in public comments this week, echoed Putin’s warnings about U.S. military equipment and activity encroaching on Russia’s borders and said, “The nightmare scenario of military confrontation is returning.”The intelligence document also suggests that Russian forces may be leaving equipment behind at training facilities to allow an attack on Ukraine to commence quickly.“Equipment may be left behind at different training ranges to enable a rapid, final buildup,” the document adds.Separately, a Ukrainian government official said that Russian military exercises conducted earlier this year near Ukraine’s borders helped Russian forces essentially rehearse an invasion.“The Russian troops worked out the issues of creating strike groups near the borders of our state, mobilization measures, logistical support of groups, [and] transfer of significant military contingents, including by air,” from Russia to the border with Ukraine, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive analysis.While laying the groundwork for an invasion, the Russian government has also been waging a propaganda campaign, the U.S. administration official said.“Additionally, in the past month, our information indicates Russian influence proxies and media outlets have started to increase content denigrating Ukraine and NATO, in part to pin the blame for a potential Russian military escalation on Ukraine,” the official said.“Recent information also indicates that Russian officials proposed adjusting Russia’s information operations against Ukraine to emphasize the narrative that Ukrainian leaders had been installed by the West, harbored a hatred for the ‘Russian world,’ and were acting against the interests of the Ukrainian people.”In his comments in Latvia, Blinken cautioned the Ukrainians not to give Russia a pretext for military action.“We’re also urging Ukraine to continue to exercise restraint because, again, the Russian playbook is to claim provocation for something that they were planning to do all along,” he said.Putin has demanded the United States and its allies provide signed assurances excluding any expansion of NATO to include Ukraine and Georgia and limiting military activity near Russia’s borders, most notably in and around Ukraine.The demands for a new European security pact come after Putin has suggested for months that U.S. and allied military activities in Ukraine and near Russia’s borders are crossing a red line for the Kremlin.Russia needs “precise legal, judicial guarantees because our Western colleagues have failed to deliver on verbal commitments they made,” Putin said in a speech at the Kremlin this week, suggesting the start of “substantive talks on this topic.”Putin has long railed against NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact states as a disrespectful encroachment on Moscow.