NATO on the Ukraine crisis: No de-escalation from Russia visible (video)

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General: “We have heard the signals from Moscow that they are ready to continue diplomatic efforts. But so far we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground. On the contrary, it seems that Russia is increasing its military build-up continues and we have received no response to written proposals that we sent to Russia on January 26 outlining the critical issues and points.NATO allies stand ready to sit down with Russia and try to reach a political Finding a way forward. So far we haven’t seen any de-escalation from Russia. But of course we’re all following what they’re doing closely. And if they really do start withdrawing their troops, then we’ll welcome that. But that remains to be seen. They have always been moving troops back and forth, so the fact that we are seeing troop movement is not evidence of an actual R retreat. It’s always been a constant up and down, a back and forth. But the trend over the last few weeks and months has been a steady increase in Russian capabilities near the Ukrainian borders. So Russia is still capable of invading Ukraine without warning.”