New Russian military deployments have been identified at several locations near Ukraine through commercial satellite images released by a private U.S. company.
The images, published by Maxar Technologies, indicate Moscow’s buildup is continuing and is fueling fears of an invasion even as diplomats seek to ease tensions in the region, according to the Reuters news agency.
The images show “significant new deployments” in parts of Crimea — forcibly annexed by Russia in 2014 — western Russia and Belarus. Reuters said it could not independently verify the images released by Maxar Technologies, which has been tracking the Russian buildup for several weeks.
Maxar said it identified fresh deployments of troops and equipment, including 500 troop tents and hundreds of vehicles, at an airfield north of the Crimean city of Simferopol, Reuters reported.