Russia has spent a decade modernizing and professionalizing its military. “So yes, it does feel different.”įor Vladimir Putin, the move on Ukraine follows the hard logic of brute military power, which he judges is weighted in his favor. You’d have to go back to the Cold War to see something of this magnitude,” said Milley. “This is larger in scale and scope in terms of the massing of forces than anything we’ve seen in recent memory. (Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images) In a press briefing today, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley stressed that with over 100,000 troops and a full panoply of military capabilities massed on Ukraine’s border - including mechanized ground units, air and naval forces, missile batteries, electronic warfare and cyber units and logistics - Russia certainly has the capability to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The United States and its NATO allies are rushing warships and fighter aircraft to the alliance’s vulnerable eastern flank, even as they airlift hundreds of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles and tons of military equipment to Kyiv for the purpose of inflicting casualties on any Russian invasion force. Just in the past week, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military buildup near Ukraine’s borders has grown to nearly 130,000 troops, and expanded into neighboring Belarus. As Russia and the NATO alliance ascend the escalation ladder to dizzying heights over the fate of Ukraine, the possibility of military conflict grows with each successive rung.
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