US shares intel with European allies on Russian plans for potential Ukraine invasion

The information lays out a scenario where troops would cross into Ukraine from Crimea with potentially about 100,000 soldiers

For Putin, Ukraine is unfinished business after his annexation of Crimea in 2014. He sees Ukraine as part of Russia and bristles at its outreach with the west

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Russian T-90 tanks roll at the Red Square in Moscow during a Victory Day parade. File photo: AFP

Published: 12:05pm, 22 Nov 2021Updated: 8:53pm, 22 Nov 2021

The United States has shared intelligence including maps with European allies that shows a build-up of Russian troops and artillery to prepare for a rapid, large-scale push into Ukraine from multiple locations if President Vladimir Putin decided to invade, according to people familiar with the conversations.

That intelligence has been conveyed to some Nato members over the past week to back up US concerns about Putin’s possible intentions and an increasingly frantic diplomatic effort to deter him from any incursion, with European leaders engaging directly with the Russian president.

The diplomacy is informed by an American assessment that Putin could be weighing an invasion early next year as his troops again mass near the border.

The information lays out a scenario where troops would cross into Ukraine from Crimea, the Russian border and via Belarus, with about 100 battalion tactical groups – potentially about 100,000 soldiers – deployed for what the people described as an operation in rough terrain and freezing conditions, covering extensive territory and prepared for a potentially prolonged occupation.

Two of the people said about half that number of tactical groups was already in position and that any invasion would be backed up by air support.

The two people said that Moscow had also called up tens of thousands of reservists on a scale unprecedented in post-Soviet times. They explained the role of reservists in any conflict would be to secure territory in a later phase after the tactical battalions paved the way. Russia has not publicly announced any major call-up of reservists.

One of the people said the US had also shared information about an exponential rise in disinformation targeting Kyiv and that Moscow has recruited agents to try and sow destabilisation inside Ukraine.