US, NATO say Russia is building up troops near Ukraine, not withdrawing

The United States and NATO said Russia was still building up troops around Ukraine on Wednesday despite Moscow’s insistence it was pulling back, questioning President Vladimir Putin’s stated desire to negotiate a solution to the crisis.

In Ukraine, where people raised flags and played the national anthem to show unity against fears of an invasion, the government said a cyberattack that hit the defence ministry was the worst of its kind that the country had seen. It pointed the finger towards Russia, which denied involvement.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces were pulling back after exercises in southern and western military districts near Ukraine — part of a huge build-up that was accompanied by demands for sweeping security guarantees from Washington and NATO.

It published video that it said showed tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled artillery units leaving the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.

But US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said key Russian units were moving towards the border, not away. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said moving troops and tanks back and forth did not amount to proof of a pullout.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defence ministry said hackers were still bombarding its website and had found vulnerabilities but that traffic was being rerouted to servers in the United States while the issue was being fixed.