US intelligence estimated that today (Wednesday) a war was supposed to break out when Russia invades Ukraine, but as the day goes on it turns out that nothing has changed on the ground. Following the failure of the Western assessment, senior Russian officials today mocked social media for the US and the West.
“I want to ask if sources of disinformation in the US and UK could publish the schedule of our upcoming invasions for the coming year,” a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman wrote. “I want to plan my vacations.” Passed as usual, slept peacefully. In the morning, we started the day in a calm and professional manner. ”
Earlier in the day, the German newspaper Di Walt reported that Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, had said that wars in Europe “rarely start on Wednesday” in response to Western estimates that the Russian invasion would begin today. “There will be no escalation either in the coming week, or the week after, or in the coming month,” he added.
Meanwhile, after the withdrawal of Russian forces from the border with Ukraine was reported yesterday, the Kremlin announced today that the Russians intend to return more military equipment from the Crimean peninsula. This, after completing the “military exercise”.
Despite this, the West was not impressed by the withdrawal of Russian forces and even claimed that in practice Russia was only strengthening its positions towards a possible attack. “What we are seeing is that they have increased the number of troops and that there are more troops on the way,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the opening of a two-day conference attended by defense ministers of the military alliance.
Stoltenberg went on to explain that “if they really start withdrawing forces it is something we would welcome. They have always moved forces back and forth – so the very fact that we see a movement of forces cannot confirm that it is indeed a retreat.” He added that “a response has not yet been received to a proposal that NATO made to Russia about three weeks ago in an attempt to meet its security demands.”
NATO Secretary-General stressed: “We will continue to send a very clear message to Russia that we are ready to sit down and discuss with them, but at the same time are prepared for the worst.” “If Russia invades Ukraine again, it will pay a heavy price. We will continue to expose Russian plans and actions to make it harder for it to carry out aggressive actions against Ukraine.”