While Kiev is beating the war drums over a perceived Russian "menace" near Ukraine's borders, Pentagon officials have signaled that they have not detected any signs of an "immediate threat" to Ukraine from Russia.
James Marson and Thomas Grove of the Wall Street Journal call attention to Russia's recent moves aimed at strengthening its western periphery.
However, an unnamed Pentagon official told the journalists that "it's a long-term trend" and "there is nothing new."
"US military officials, having closely monitored Russian movements of troops and equipment in the [past] two years… said they haven't detected signs of an immediate threat. Any shift in Russian military posture reflects broader plans," the journalists report citing the source from the US Department of Defense.
Indeed, amid a series of NATO joint military drills in the Black Sea this July, Moscow announced that it would deploy its S-400 Triumf cutting-edge air defense systems to Crimea in August, thus bringing the peninsular defense to "a whole new level."
Still, it wasn't the so-called Russian "military buildup" that aggravated tensions between Moscow and Kiev. The recent Russo-Ukrainian controversy has been sparked by a failed act of sabotage in Crimea.
On August 10, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) reported that it had prevented a series of terrorist attacks in Crimea plotted by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's intelligence services and stamped out a spy ring in the peninsula.
"The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation prevented terrorist acts in the Republic of Crimea, prepared by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense's Main Intelligence Directorate," the FSB's official statement read.
Remarkably, the next very day following the FSB's announcement Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko ordered to "put all units near the administrative border with Crimea and along the entire line of contact in Donbass on high readiness."
"Divisions and units of the Ukrainian armed forces which are stationed in the vicinity of the administrative border with Crimea are on high alert. A build-up of corresponding groups has been carried out," Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko reported on his Facebook page on August 11.
To add more fuel to the fire, Poroshenko stated Thursday that he doesn't rule out the introduction of martial law and a total mobilization.
The political analyst believes that Kiev will make attempts to provoke Russia into a military action on Ukrainian territory — for instance in Kherson or Donbass region — in late August or in the first half of September.
"In the next month we will see a number of such attempts [on the part of Kiev]," Tretyakov deems, adding that purportedly Kiev wants to cast a shadow on Russia's participation in the upcoming G20 meeting.
Interestingly enough, on August 12 the White House called upon the Poroshenko government to avoid escalating tensions with Moscow and continue to fulfill the Minsk accords.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian parliament's upper house, wrote on his Facebook page that Washington's reaction is a sign "that Western countries are damped by Kiev's latest undertakings and are not ready to support the Ukrainian authorities as unconditionally as previously."
