BBC News published this video item, entitled “Russia says “no plans” to invade Ukraine as more troops sent to border- BBC News” – below is their description.
“We have no plans to invade” – that was the message from Russia’s foreign minister after talks with the US about Russian intentions in Ukraine. His American counterpart said their discussions in Geneva had been “frank and substantive” – but also warned of “massive consequences” if Moscow were to attack Ukraine.
Russia has amassed 100,000 troops near its borders with Ukraine. It’s led to grave international concern – and to the western alliance, Nato, boosting its military presence in eastern Europe. President Putin has demanded that Ukraine be stopped from ever joining Nato.
During the Cold War the Soviet Union controlled most of eastern Europe, with the NATO alliance, which includes the US and the UK, ranged against it.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lost control of those eastern European countries, and since then NATO has expanded eastwards, to Russia’s borders.
Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by James Landale in Geneva and Steve Rosenberg in Moscow.
BBC News YouTube Channel
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About This Source - BBC News
The video item below is a piece of English language content from BBC News. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster funded by the UK Government, and British license fee payers. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London.
Moscow, on the Moskva River in western Russia, is the nation’s cosmopolitan capital. In its historic core is the Kremlin, a complex that’s home to the president and tsarist treasures in the Armoury. Outside its walls is Red Square, Russia’s symbolic center. It’s home to Lenin’s Mausoleum, the State Historical Museum’s comprehensive collection and St. Basil’s Cathedral, known for its colorful, onion-shaped domes.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and a former officer of the KGB who has served as President of Russia since 2012, previously holding the position from 1999 until 2008. He was also the Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country located in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the south.
Russia spans more than one-eighth of the Earth’s inhabited land area, stretching eleven time zones, and bordering 16 sovereign nations. Moscow is the country’s capital.
The Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 and since 1993 Russia been governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Russia is a major great power, with the world’s second-most powerful military, and the fourth-highest military expenditure. As a recognised nuclear-weapon state, the country possesses the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a federal socialist state in Northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, it was a one-party state (until 1990) governed by the Communist Party, with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian SFSR.
The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 when the Bolsheviks, headed by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government that had earlier replaced the monarchy of the Russian Empire.
On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the remaining twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states. The Russian Federation (formerly the Russian SFSR) assumed the Soviet Union’s rights and obligations and is recognized as its continued legal personality.
Ukraine is a large country in Eastern Europe known for its Orthodox churches, Black Sea coastline and forested mountains. Its capital, Kiev, features the gold-domed St. Sophia’s Cathedral, with 11th-century mosaics and frescoes. Overlooking the Dnieper River is the Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a Christian pilgrimage site housing Scythian tomb relics and catacombs containing mummified Orthodox monks.