(WashPo) NATO general warns of further Russian aggression

NATO general warns of further Russian aggression

View Photo Gallery — Russian forces break down gate at Crimean base: After an ultimatum to abandon the base and an hours-long standoff, Russian troops in at least four armored vehicles seized control of one of the last Ukrainian military outposts in Crimea.

By Carol Morello, Griff Witte and Will Englund, Updated: Sunday, March 23, 1:03 PM E-mail the writers

BELBEK, Crimea — NATO’s top military commander warned Sunday that Russia could seek to expand its territorial conquest to new areas, just a day after Russian forces seized some of the final Ukrainian military installations in the contested Crimean Peninsula.


U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, said Russia had assembled a large force on Ukraine’s eastern border that could pose a threat to Moldova’s separatist Transnistria region.

Video

A Russian armored vehicle attempts to enter Belbek Airbase in Crimea where Ukrainian forces are resisting handing over control.

“The [Russian] force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready,” Breedlove said at an event sponsored by the German Marshall Fund.


Ukraine’s east is also considered under threat; Ukrainian officials have been warning for weeks that Russia is trying to provoke a conflict there, a charge Russia denies.


But Breedlove said Russian ambitions extend beyond Ukraine.

For the rest, see:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-general-warns-of-further-russian-aggression/2014/03/23/2ff63bb6-b269-11e3-8020-b2d790b3c9e1_story.html