UKRAINE

Intro: As world leaders tell Vladimir Putin to back off, 80,000 Russian soldiers have amassed on Ukraine’s borders. The fear now is that there could be a full-scale invasion…

Ukraine has warned that 80,000 Russian troops have amassed on its borders and could invade. World leaders have told Vladimir Putin to back off.

A senior security chief in Kiev said Moscow could launch a full-scale invasion and Russian troops would be in the Ukrainian capital within ‘two or three hours’ of the order to advance.

Photographs of Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers close to Ukraine’s borders are adding to the tensions.

British officials have been receiving reports about Russian troops massing on the border since Tuesday and are concerned by the show of force.

British intelligence is unsure whether the movements are intended to back up the annexation of Crimea, preparation for an invasion or simply defensive.

Moscow’s show of force started earlier this week as Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, met Barack Obama in the Oval Office and NATO continued military exercises in Poland.

During a week of rising tensions, G7 leaders, including David Cameron and Mr Obama, warned Russia not to annex the Crimea after a referendum in the province, tomorrow, which has been taken over by pro-Putin troops.

Their statement warns the Russian president to ‘cease all efforts to change the status of Crimea contrary to Ukrainian law and in violation of international law’ and threatens ‘further action’ if Moscow seizes Crimea.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Russian MPs who voted to use force in Ukraine and Kremlin officials behind the invasion would be hit with asset freezes and a travel ban to the European Union – most likely to be issued at a Brussels summit on Monday.

But the main concern of Western leaders is to deter Russia from seizing the rest of Eastern Ukraine.

Andriy Parubly, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, has said that even Kiev may not be safe from Putin’s troops, who were regrouping in ‘an offensive manner’.

Mr Parubly claimed that forces massing included ‘over 80,000 personnel, up to 270 tanks, 180 armoured vehicles, 380 artillery systems, 18 multiple-launch missile systems, 140 combat aircraft, 90 combat helicopters and 19 warships and cutters’. He added: ‘Critical is the situation not only in Crimea, but along the entire north-eastern frontier. In fact, Russian troop units are two or three hours of travel from Kiev.’

Former Putin adviser Andrey Illarionov has predicted that in addition to Crimea, Putin may move to annex other major cities in Ukraine – including Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, Kherson and Odessa.

Pictures of Russian armoured vehicles on the move in regions close to the Ukrainian border include motorised infantry vehicles and tanks. The military movements are also said to include Grad BM-21 multiple rocket launch vehicles. Tanks have also been pictured being carried by rail in Belgorod, and are reported to be parked in a village just 12 miles from the border.

The moves came as the Russian armed forces announced a huge military exercise by its airborne troops. The three-day exercise ordered by Putin involved a vast ‘landing operation’ by 4,000 paratroopers.

NATO has conducted its own show of force to reassure countries in Eastern Europe. The US and Poland began war games during the week that involved at least 12 American F-16 fighter jets. A joint naval exercise of US, Bulgarian and Romanian naval forces in the Black Sea also started.

Events have been building to a crunch point when tomorrow Crimea will vote on whether to join Russia. If Putin recognises the province as Russian, sanctions will follow.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met in London yesterday, but as expected those talks failed to make any progress on the crisis.

Infographic:

Geo-political infographic of Ukraine and of Crimea