Washington, DC—Today, Congressman Mike Turner, Chair of the U.S. Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, released the following statement on recent Russian activity near Ukraine.
"I am deeply concerned with the continued buildup of Russian forces along the Ukrainian border. Over the past week, we’ve seen the buildup of up to 80,000 additional Russian troops along with large amounts of armored ground vehicles, battle tanks, artillery systems as well as rotary and fixed wing aircraft.
This buildup is significant and clearly indicates that President Putin is creating options to potentially capture much of Eastern Ukraine and move on Kyiv.
While Putin may have indicated to President Obama that he has no intentions of advancing further into Ukraine, his actions clearly indicate the opposite.
I call upon the Obama Administration to immediately provide the Ukrainian government a detailed military assessment of Russian action and strategic military advice. “