Nato fears further Russian threats

Nato’s top military commander said Russia had a large force on Ukraine’s eastern border and that he was worried it could pose a threat to Moldova’s separatist Transdniestria region.

The warning comes a day after Russian troops seized the last military facilities under Ukrainian control in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsular that Russian president Vladimir Putin formally annexed on Friday.

“The [Russian] force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready,” said Nato’s supreme allied commander of Europe, US Air Force general Philip Breedlove.

He said Nato was concerned about the threat to Transdniestria, which declared independence from Moldova in 1990 but has not been recognised by any UN member state. About 30% of its 500,000 population is ethnic Russian.

“There is absolutely sufficient [Russian] force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Transdniestria if the decision was made to do that, and that is very worrisome.”

The president of Moldova, a former member of the Soviet Union, last week warned Russia against considering any move to annex Transdniestria, which lies on Ukraine’s western border, in the same way that it has taken control of Crimea.

Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s deputy defence minister, yesterday said Russia was complying with international agreements limiting the number of troops near its border with Ukraine.

Moscow’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told the BBC that Russia did not have any “expansionist views”. Asked to give a commitment that Russian troops would not move in to other Ukrainian territory outside Crimea, Chizhov said: “There is no intention of the Russian Federation to do anything like that.”

US senator John McCain, a Republican foreign policy specialist, said Putin’s actions in Ukraine were akin to those of Adolf Hitler in 1930s Germany.

“I think he [Putin] is calculating how much he can get away with, just as Adolf Hitler calculated how much he could get away with in the 1930s,” said McCain.

US president Barack Obama’s national security adviser said on Friday the world was reassessing its relationship with Russia and Washington was sceptical of Russian assurances that troop movements on the Ukraine border were no more than military exercises.

Hopes that the limited sanctions measures in place might dissuade further incursions were dealt a blow yesterday as Russia’s SMP bank, whose main shareholders were targeted by US sanctions, said Visa and MasterCard had resumed payment services for clients.

The bank said it was glad the two biggest international payments systems had listened to its arguments to reverse Friday’s suspension of services as it was wrong to target the bank.

Putin and Russian media had mocked the sanctions, which did not stop Russia’s military completing its takeover of Ukraine’s military bases in Crimea.

Russia’s defence ministry yesterday said that its flag was now flying over 189 Ukrainian military installations on the peninsula.