U.S. warns Russia may stage video as pretext to invade Ukraine ...

REUTERS/Yara Nardi"This is the biggest Russian deployment there since the Cold War," said Stoltenberg, adding the expected deployment includes 30,000 combat troops, Spetsnaz special operations forces, SU-35 fighter jets, S-400 air defence systems and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles.The Kremlin has described the Allied Resolve exercises as a rehearsal for repelling external aggression and says its forces will withdraw after the drills.Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived in Belarus on Thursday to inspect the troops.The Belarusian defence minister released images from the exercises showing troops parachuting to the ground, fighter jets in the sky, soldiers dismounting from a helicopter holding weapons, and tanks firing and manoeuvring.Belarus shares its western border with NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, while Ukraine lies to its south.WORLD LEADERS KEEP TALKINGSupport for Russia came from China.Their two foreign ministers "coordinated their positions" during a meeting in Beijing on Thursday, the Chinese foreign ministry said.China expressed understanding and support for Russia's position on security regarding Russia's relationship with the United States and NATO, it said.Putin was set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday before attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics.The U.S. State Department warned Russia that a closer relationship between Moscow and Beijing would not make up for the consequences of an invasion and only make the Russian economy "more brittle."Elsewhere, world leaders continued their efforts to resolve the crisis.In Kyiv, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy and offered to host a meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy.In a move likely to grate with Moscow, Zelenskiy used the meeting to trumpet a deal enabling Ukrainian factories to produce Turkish drones that have already been deployed in Ukraine's war against Russia-backed rebels in its eastern Donbass region.In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron said he and Polish President Andrzej Duda had discussed the possibility of a three-way meeting along with Germany's Olaf Scholz in coming days on the situation in Ukraine.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for Russia to return to a path of "peace and dialogue" or face sanctions as the EU worked on a joint response to a letter many of its members received from Russia seeking security guarantees.Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.Subscribe to our daily curated newsletter to receive the latest exclusive Reuters coverage delivered to your inbox.Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day.