As Russia builds up military near border with Ukraine, the West fears the worst

A Ukrainian soldier strides through a muddy trench near the city of Donetsk, in Eastern Ukraine, before stopping to poke a rifle through a barrier toward the Russia-backed separatists stationed about250 metresaway.

For more than seven years, war has played out in thisregion of the country, claiming thousands of lives and suspending communities in a continual state of fear and uncertainty.

Now, the Ukrainian soldiers on this front line say they are prepared for whatever may come next.

"We won't leave," saidVadim, acommander with the government forceswho spoke with a freelancer working for CBC and only wanted to be identified by one name.

"We will stay here until the end."

The conflictbetween government forces and Russia-backed separatist militias in the southeastern region of Donbasnear the Ukraine-Russia border has continuedto eruptdespite multiple ceasefiressince it broke out seven years ago. But now,U.S. and Ukrainian officials, as well as leaders of some NATO countries, have sounded the alarm that Russia could be planning to launch aninvasion because it is moving military forces closer to itsborder with Ukraine.

The security situation in the regionis expected to dominate a meeting of NATO foreign ministers when they meet in Riga, Latvia's capital, next week.

And in the most recent sign of deteriorating relations,Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Friday accused Russia of plotting a coup against him, which the Kremlin has denied.

Unusual military movement

Russia has also denied claims it is planning an invasionand accused the West of "whipping up tension," but some experts contend that recentunusual troop movements and accompanying rhetoric send a worrying signal.

What is unknown is how much of this is part of a political bluff or a precursor to a large-scalemilitary operation.

"Think of it as a chess board being set up. We are in the early stages of something," said Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher in the Washington, D.C.,office of theRAND Corporation, an American think-tank focused on military analysis.

"Russia is leaving itself with a lot of options at this point."

Massicot, who previously worked at the the U.S. DefenceDepartmentas a senior analyst focused on Russian military capabilities, says Russia's militaryhas been movingforces from Siberia further west, which she describes as highly atypical and outside of the army's normal training window.

Given that the Kremlin hasn't explained the motivation for the movementbeyond denying it is planning an invasion, she says analysts are searching to explainwhat Russia could be up to.

Different than last year

Massicot says unlike last spring, whenRussia amassed troops near the Ukrainian border, also sparking fears of an attack, before eventually withdrawing many of the forces, this time, the equipment is being moved mostly at nightinstead of duringthe day.

Commercial satelliteshave captured images of military equipment parked in westernRussia that have been posted online,but Konrad Muzyka, a defence analyst with Poland-basedRochan Consulting,says there haven'tbeen many available because cloudy weather has obscured the views.

Still, he says that by examining open-source intelligence, he has been able totrackthe military buildup. Hewrote on his websitethat over the last few weeks,not aday has gone by where there haven'tbeen trains or vehicle convoys transporting military equipment spotted heading toward Ukraine or the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

It is hard to assess how many troops Russia has moved toward the border in recent weeks. Zelensky has said there are 100,000, but Massicot says the images she has reviewed suggest it's less than that but still in the "tens of thousands."

The fact that some of that military personnel andequipment is amassing near communities a couple of hundred kilometres from the Ukrainian border suggests an invasion is not necessarily imminent, Massicotsaid.

"It is not what you do when you are about to go in," she said. "It is basically a negotiation point:I can continue to move forward or I can stay here."

Russia warns of NATO's eastward expansion

There are reports that a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently being planned for December or early next year.

On Nov. 18, in a televised speech to foreign policy officials in Moscow, Putin seemed to imply that the current heightened tensions are advantageousto Russia, because they could force the West to acknowledge its demands to avoid awider conflict.

Earlier this fall, Russia said one of those demandswas a halt to the expansion of NATOmilitary infrastructure into Ukraine. Putinsaid the North Atlantic Treaty Organizationhad not taken its earlier warnings seriouslyand militaryinfrastructure was expandingtoward Russia's doorstep.

He pointed to NATOanti-missile defencesystems in Romania and Poland, which he claimed could easily be converted for offensive use.

"Our concerns andwarnings regarding NATO's eastward expansion have been totally ignored," Putinsaid, encouraging his foreign minister to push for long-term security guarantees.

"Russia cannot constantly be thinking about what could happen there tomorrow."

Canada consideringincreasingmilitary support for Ukraine

By "there,"he means Ukraineand the possibility that the country could be admitted into the 30-member NATO bloc.

Ukraine has been pushing for inclusion the past 13 years, but its bid has been denied so far. Biden previously said Ukraine needed to do more to clean up corruption before it could be admitted intoNATO.

It also has yet to contain the secessionist movement in thetwo self-proclaimedrepublicsin Eastern Ukraine, which complicates its bid for NATO membership. During the last two years,between 400,000 and more than500,000 residents of the regionhave been givenRussian passports, according to media reports.

Despite not being a member of the security alliance, Ukraine has secured promises of continued military supportfrom NATO countries.

Canada, which has been helping to train Ukrainian armed forcesfor years, says it is considering a requestto throw additional support behind the country's NATO ambitions.

Canada currently sends a rotating group ofabout 200 Canadian Armed Forces members to Ukraine every six months,and according to a report inthe Globe and Mail, it's contemplating deploying additional troops and aircraft.

CNN recently reported that U.S.officials were also looking at sending extra weapons to Ukraine, and this week, the country received two former U.S.patrol boats.

WATCH | U.S. warns of possible Russian invasion:

Ukraine warned of potential Russian invasion

3 years ago

Duration 2:16

With the U.S. warning Ukraine of an imminent invasion, Russia has been stockpiling troops and tools along multiple parts of the Ukraine border.

Escalating tensions, deteriorating relations

The Kremlin, which severed its diplomatic ties with NATO in October, said the West was inflaming the situation in Eastern Ukraine.

Russia'sdefence minister said that the U.S.rehearsed a nuclear strike against Russia from two different directions earlier this month and that strategic bombers had come close to Russia'sborders a number of times.A Pentagon spokesperson said the drills were announced publicly beforehand and adhered to international protocols.

Both Russia and Ukraine have ramped upmilitary exercises amid the deteriorating security situation.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based military analyst, says one ofthe biggest obstacles to launching a military operation now is the weather. This time of yearis referred to asrasputitsa in Russia, which is when rain and melting snow make unpaved roads difficult to navigate.

If Russia has plans to invade, Felgenhauer says, the plan would have to be swiftand could be more easily carried out on frozen terrain in January or February.

While Felgenhauer says he isn't convinced that an attack will happen, he admits it's possible especially considering how bleak the overall security picture is.

"There is an increasing number of places where things could go wrong," he said, noting that diplomatic discussions between Russia and the West have greatly deteriorated.

Slippery slope

Some Americanand NATO officials have also pointed to another destabilizing factor in the region, accusing Russia ofhelping to orchestrate the migrant crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland, an allegation Russia has denied.

The U.S. ambassador to Belarusrecentlyvoiced concerns that the crisis could be a way todivert attention from Moscow's military buildup.

Ukraine's border authoritieshave said they'vedeployed 8,500 extra soldiersand police officers to its border with Belarus in case it, too, sees a flood of people surge toward its border, even if the fact that Ukraine is not an EU member makes that less likely.

"We are kind of slowly but inevitably slipping into a situation where we could go into a confrontation," Felgenhauer said.