Fresh images capture the increasingly tense line of contact between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, as well as Russian maneuvers near the Ukrainian border and preparations related to the crisis taking place far from the front line.
On The Brink: The Russia-Ukraine Tensions In Photos
- By RFE/RL
1
A Ukrainian serviceman descends steps at a frontline position facing Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk region on January 22.
2
A Russian soldier fires a rocket-propelled grenade during drills at the Kuzminsky range in the southern Rostov region of Russia on January 21. The military firing range is around 50 kilometers from the border with Ukraine. Russia has massed more than 125,000 troops near the border with Ukraine.
3
A U.S. airman prepares a pallet of ammunition, weapons, and other military supplies bound for Ukraine at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on January 21.
4
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv announced on January 22 that around 90 tons of lethal aid had arrived in Ukraine from the United States.
5
An instructor trains volunteer Territorial Defense Forces in a Kyiv park on January 22.
6
Russian servicemen prepare to fire a mortar during drills at the Kuzminsky range on January 21.
7
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv photographed on January 24. Both Britain and the United States have announced the departure of some embassy staff and their dependents from Ukraine after talks between Washington and Moscow last week failed to de-escalate tensions.
8
Local residents and cadets of the region controlled by a Russia-backed separatist group that calls itself the Donetsk People's Republic during a January 22 ceremony marking the fatal shelling of a trolleybus seven years earlier in Donetsk.
9
Members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces train in a park in Kyiv on January 22.
10
Local residents from a region controlled by a Russia-backed separatist group that calls itself the Donetsk People's Republic watch an honor guard on January 22 during the ceremony to mark the seventh anniversary of a Donetsk trolleybus being hit by shelling.
11
A Ukrainian serviceman chops firewood on the front line near the village of Novomykhalivka in the Donetsk region on January 21.
12
A Ukrainian soldier in snow camouflage peers toward the positions of Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk region on January 21.
