Washington (AFP) - Nearly 100,000 Russian forces have massed on Ukraine's border, a top Ukrainian defense official told an American audience Thursday, giving a number far higher than US military estimates.
"Almost 100,000 soldiers are stationed on the borders of Ukraine and in the direction ... of Kharkiv, Donetsk, " Andriy Parubiy, chairman of Ukraine's national security council, said via a webcast from Kiev.
"Russian troops are not in Crimea only, they are along all Ukrainian borders. They're in the south, they're in the east and in the north," Parubiy said.
After its intervention in the Crimean peninsula, Russia is plotting to foment separatist sentiment elsewhere and Kiev fears a possible incursion in the country's east, he told the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.
Parubiy said any day "we might see a huge attack on the territory of continental Ukraine and we are getting ready for it."
Although US defense officials have put the number of Russian troops closer to 20,000, a US lawmaker said Thursday that much stronger Russian forces had deployed towards Ukraine's border.
"Over the past week we've seen the buildup of up to 80,000 additional Russian troops," Representative Mike Turner said in a statement.
Turner said the force included large numbers of armored vehicles, battle tanks, artillery, helicopters and planes.
The Republican lawmaker accused the White House of witholding "critical" information about the full scope of Russian troop movements and demanded the adminstration reveal what it knows to help "vulnerable allies."
Pentagon officials previously have said more than 20,000 Russian troops -- including airborne units and armored vehicles -- have deployed along Ukraine's border, a force big enough to seize control of the eastern region.
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