"Evidence" of Russian troops involved in Ukraine conflict built on primitive fakes - general
MOSCOW. Dec 10 (Interfax-AVN) - Western countries have been actively trying to picture Russia as a "blatant aggressor against Ukraine," says Army Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff.
"In the run-up to every international high-level meeting on further policies towards Russia, U.S. and NATO officials and so-called 'human rights campaigners' controlled by them are dishing out ever new portions of 'revelations'," Gerasimov told foreign military attaches in Moscow on Wednesday.
"They are trying to pass primitive graphic fakes put out on the Internet and social media for irrefutable evidence of Russian troops' active involvement in the domestic civil conflict in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," the Russian general said.
"All this is happening against the backdrop of the bid to turn Ukraine into a source of long-term controlled instability inflicting direct damage to Russia's geopolitical interests and integration processes across the former Soviet Union," Gerasimov said.
"Prior to today's meeting we specifically calculated how many Russian troops would ostensibly have to be in Donbas, based on such provocative claims," said the chief of the General Staff.
"By our modest estimate, it turns out over 8,500 tanks and armored vehicles, around 1,200 artillery weapons and about 1,900 multiple rocket launchers," the general said. "Total area of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions is approximately the same as that of the Moscow region," he said.
"All those assembled here today are military professionals. So I hope that you perfectly understand that hiding such a huge combined-arms grouping on a relatively small piece of land where journalists and OSCE representatives are working freely, is impossible even hypothetically. And one should bear in mind that this territory is monitored continually by western space intelligence and monitoring systems," Gerasimov said.
"All these accusations are being made against the backdrop of another, already fourth, mobilization in Ukraine," he said.