Washington - Russian troops continue massing on the border with Ukraine, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said at a briefing on Friday, July 25.
“We have seen troops massing at the border, as we’ve seen in the past,” she said.
“I have no reason to disagree with those numbers,” she said, asked by a journalist if the U.S. State Department in a position to repeat the information presented by NATO that there are now 15,000 Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian-Russian border.
“The Ukrainians have a responsibility and a duty to protect their citizens and their territory, which is what they’re doing. Russia should de-escalate, move back, and stop backing separatists who are taking down Ukrainian planes – fighter jets, as we’ve seen – and are attacking innocent civilians,” she said.
