FOXTROT escreveu:Só uma coisa, se nesse mundo dominado por internet, câmeras, satélites, radares, drones e etc, não sequer uma única imagem que prove a entrada de forças militares russas na Ucrânia, sou forçado a acreditar que tal invasão não ocorreu!
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Update: SHAPE confirms Russian forces fighting in Ukraine
Russian forces are operating inside eastern Ukraine's territory, are using advanced weaponry to support the country's rebel groups, and have clashed directly with Ukrainian soldiers, according to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), NATO's top military command.
"In the past two weeks we have seen a real upsurge in Russian activity in the region," said Dutch Brigadier General Nico Tak, director of the Comprehensive Crisis and Operations Management Centre, Allied Command Operations, during a 28 August briefing at SHAPE's HQ in Mons, Belgium.
SHAPE posits that Russia has 20,000 ground and air force troops - drawn from different regions across Russia and regularly rotated to keep them fresh - along its border with Ukraine. Of these, Brig Gen Tak said "well over" 1,000 regular Russian troops are now deployed inside Ukraine around the rebel-held city of Luhansk.
He added that the flow of Russian-made weapons and armour to the surrounding region had increased "in both volume and quality" compared with that of March when Russia first began its campaign of aggression against Ukraine.
SHAPE backed up its claims with satellite imagery provided to the press. These contrast equipment deployments at various Russian bases and rebel-held Ukrainian bases in the spring of 2014 versus late August. For example, 19 June imagery of Smale camp, 33 km east of Ukraine in Russia's Rostov area, showed an unoccupied encampment, but by 20 August the imagery reveals a large camp with pre-positioned cargo trucks, main battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and supplies.
Elsewhere, imagery taken on 17 May of Russia's Millerovo Airfield showed a virtually empty airstrip with only one aircraft in a parked position. By 21 August the same strip appeared to be "well supplied with newly arrived aircraft and helicopters", said Brig Gen Tak.
"Russian self-propelled artillery has also been deployed in mid-August to [eastern Ukraine's rebel-held] Krasnodon military base south of Luhansk. The Russian force we see now is far more capable than what we saw in March: it has combined forces capable of conducting highly mobile, offensive operations over a long time," he said.
Asked if SHAPE had any evidence of Russian soldiers directly fighting Ukrainian troops, he said: "Yes, we deduce that, in terms of the Russian casualties now being reported, there is clear contact between the two forces."
Perhaps more worrisome for Ukrainian forces fighting the rebels and their Russian supporters for control of Luhansk and the nearby city of Donesk is a new battlefront that Brig Gen Tak noted the Russians have established south of the region.
"Since Monday [25 August] we've seen a new incursion near Mariupol [on Ukraine's Sea of Azov coastline]. From there to Krasnodo and north Russia, forces could move to Donesk or west to Crimea," he said. "This poses a very worrisome threat to the supply lines of any Ukrainian troops fighting around Luhansk.
"We think Russia is not willing to accept a defeat of the separatists and is likely to do anything to prevent that," he said. "And we predict Moscow is going to try to freeze this conflict to make it difficult for Ukraine to sustain the operation or to force Kiev to broker a deal."
http://www.janes.com/article/42487/upda ... in-ukraine