🇺🇦⚡🇷🇺 Ukraine expanding it's trenches ...#Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/P8c5SgajPB

— The RAGE X (@theragex) December 21, 2021

12/23/21, By WarNews 24/7
Towards total ignition? -German media: NATO prepares VJTF Rapid Reaction Force for Ukraine!

Ukraine: Russia has deployed 265,000 troops!

The revelation of a well-known German media that NATO has increased the operational readiness of 40,000 troops of the VJTF Rapid Reaction Force due to the situation in Ukraine is a matter of great concern.

At the same time, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksay Danilov noted that "there are 122,000 Russian soldiers deployed 200 km from the border with Ukraine and another 143,500 at a distance of 400 km."
(My comment: The real number of Russian troops could be well over 300,000. The researchers are not counting the tens of thousands of Russian troops inside Belarus who also have thousands of soldiers close to the northern border of Ukraine - within 100 miles of Kiev)

More specifically, large military forces are concentrated on both sides of the Ukrainian-Russian border, with the situation in the wider region escalating daily, as successive contacts between the Euro-Atlantic axis and Russia are being launched in the immediate future, in various schemes regarding "security guarantees" in Eastern Europe.

"Russia continues to escalate and has not given up on strengthening its military presence on the border," a State Department spokesman said, adding that Washington and its allies were "closely monitoring" the situation.

This statement was made after Germany spoke of new "movements of military units" from the Russian side. A report in the German newspaper Welt states that "NATO is reacting to the movement of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine" and "the operational readiness of the Rapid Reaction Force has increased" and the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) will be able to developed within 5 days to move to a crisis area. Also other units of the reaction force, such as special forces, were also put on increased alert.

The NATO Rapid Reaction Force (NRF) is a multinational, fast-growing NATO task force of UP TO 40,000 troops (I have heard of much lower estimates). The VJTF is part of the NRF.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the day before yesterday that more than 120 mercenaries from private US military companies had been located in areas of Donetsk controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces. As he put it, "they set up firing points, plan military operations and train extremist armed groups." (this is the mercenary group that were seen with chemical weapons)
(excerpts)
source:
https://warnews247.gr/pros-oliki-anaflexi-germaniko-mme-to-nato-etoimazei-ti-dynami-tacheias-antidrasis-vjtf-gia-oukrania/

🇺🇦 The Armed Forces of Ukraine conducted conditional firing on the border with Crimea: MLRS Uranan arrived, turned around for firing and without firing, curtailed and left pic.twitter.com/izTOzwAQWM

— The RAGE X (@theragex) December 22, 2021