Ukraine crisis: Explainer as tensions rise

(26 Jan 2022) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4363144 Russia has placed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine's border and ratcheted up war games in the region. Moscow denies it is planning an assault, but the United States and its NATO allies fear that Russia is planning for war — and are making preparations of their own. The battle-weary region has been fighting pro-Russia separatist fighters since 2014. It is an area close to where Russia has massed tens of thousands of soldiers in a troop buildup that U.S. President Joe Biden says could mount the largest invasion since World War II. "What they're talking about is having U.S. troops from the U.S. become part of a multinational native force that has not yet been activated, but that could be in coming days," Associated Press reporter Bob Burns says. Here are things to know about the international tensions over Ukraine, a crisis reminiscent of the Cold War. WHAT IS RUSSIA'S LATEST MOVE? Russia has increased its pressure on the West, warning that it would quickly take "retaliatory measures" if the U.S. and its allies reject its security demands and continue their "aggressive" policies over Ukraine. Russia has demanded guarantees that NATO never admit Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations as members and that the alliance roll back troop deployments in other former Soviet bloc countries, a region Moscow still views as its sphere of interest. WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE DIPLOMATIC FRONT? Presidential advisers from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France are holding diplomatic negotiations in Paris amid the growing worries that Russia could invade Ukraine. The talks are taking place in the so-called "Normandy format," which helped to ease hostilities in 2015, a year after Putin ordered the annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and the Russia-backed insurgency began in eastern Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow expects a "good frank" talk at the Paris meeting. Several rounds of high-stakes diplomacy have failed to yield any breakthroughs, and tensions escalated further this week. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   #Ukraine #Russia #Crisis You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...