The Kremlin’s buildup includes deploying the S-400 air-defense system in Crimea and air and naval assets in the Black Sea, while conducting tank exercises in the Russian-occupied strip of Moldovan territory called Transnistria. In May the Kremlin formed a new motorized rifle division in Russia’s western Rostov region, which borders Ukraine’s separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
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Wall Street Journal: Putin’s Ukraine games
Ukraine marks a quarter century of independence from the Soviet Union on August 24, and Vladimir Putin's idea of a birthday gift is to mass troops on its border. This could be a gambit to force a new round of diplomatic concessions from the West - or the prelude to another war.
