MOSCOW, August 06. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Defense Ministry plans to open special accounts in social networks and video hosting resources so that the US State Department and the Pentagon will be able to receive unbiased information about Russian army’s actions, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov told reporters on Wednesday.

“To give aid to officials from the Pentagon and the US State Department and to rule out insinuations about “a Russian military threat,” Russian Defense Ministry is mulling creation of special accounts in social networks and video hosting resources to bring unbiased information about actions taken by Russian Armed Forces to representatives of the US intelligence community,” he said.

 

Pentagon and NATO statements

Statements by the Pentagon and NATO that Russia is allegedly massing troops near the border with Ukraine are similar to an action to sell soap bubbles, Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson, Major-General Igor Konashenkov said.

“The Russian Defense Ministry can only regret that Pentagon, State Department and NATO spokespersons make such statements,” he said. “They seem to be serious people but have to improvise all the time to lend some seriousness to their remarks. Their regular assertions that Russia is ‘massing’ troops near the border with Ukraine remind us of an action to sell soap bubbles where one has to announce as high a price as possible before the bubble bursts,” the spokesperson said.

In his opinion, this explains the big differences in the number of troops Russia is allegedly “massing” on the border with Ukraine, which are cited in Western statements.

“Hardly had Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby announced that Russia had deployed a 10,000-strong group of troops on the border with Ukraine as NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow said 20,000 Russian servicemen had been amassed there,” Konashenkov said.

“We would like to clarify specifically for Pentagon and NATO officials that it is impossible to redeploy such a multi-thousand-strong group of troops with weapons and military hardware in such a short period and stealthily from the OSCE monitors who are working in the region,” he said.

Konashenkov recalled that US and NATO officials had been inspecting Russian regions bordering on Ukraine almost on a weekly basis over the past several months under the Open Skies Treaty, “persistently not registering any military preparations or concentration of troops there”.

At the same time, “the 25,000-strong group of Ukrainian all-arms forces which is conducting a large-scale combat operation near the Russian border raises no concern in Europe and the United states for some reason,” he said.