NATO warns Russia not to invade Ukraine

(Vatican Radio) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that tens of thousands of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border will return to permanent bases after “completing military exercises”.


His announcement on Thursday came after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) warned Russia that more intervention in Ukraine would be “a historic mistake”.

In language that Moscow said resembled the Cold War, Foreign Ministers from the 28-nation NATO military alliance also condemned Russia's annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.


During two days of talks, they agreed to suspend all practical cooperation with Russia and ordered military planners to draft measures to strengthen NATO’s defenses and reassure nervous Eastern European countries.



The United States said it has already increased planned military exercises with Bulgaria and increased the size of its Europe-based crisis response force by sending extra Marines to a Romanian base near the Black Sea.

40,000 TROOPS
The measures come amid fresh warnings from NATO’s top commander in Europe, U.S. Air Force General Philip M. Breedlove, that some 40,000 Russian troops remain along Ukraine's border.

He said in statements that those forces are capable of “executing an attack order on 12 hours’ notice” and that they are “well-equipped and capable of achieving Russian military objectives in Ukraine or beyond within three to five days”.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned Russia to halt its actions.


“If Russia were to intervene further in Ukraine, I wouldn’t hesitate to call it an historic mistake,” he told reporters. “That would lead to further isolation, international isolation of Russia. It would have far-reaching consequences.”

RUSSIAN WITHDRAWAL?
He said there were no signs to support Russia’s claims that it was withdrawing forces from Ukraine’s border.


And in separate remarks, Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych told media he made a mistake when he invited Russian troops to Crimea.

“I was wrong,” he said in an interview aired on Russia’s state NTV television. “I acted on my emotions.”

He pledged to try to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin to get the Black Sea peninsula back for Ukraine. Yet with Russian forces fully in control of the region, there were no signs of that happening, soon.


Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: