THE LAST time that Russia gathered so many troops on Ukraine's borders, it went on to invade the country and annex Crimea. A deployment in recent weeks "mirrors the size and scope and scale" of Russian activity in 2014, noted General Todd Wolters, America's senior commander for Europe, on April 13th. A public acknowledgement that same day by Sergei Shoigu, Russia's defence minister, that the country had indeed built up two armies and three airborne units, but only for "combat training exercises", was hardly reassuring-the invasion seven years ago was also preceded by similarly ambiguous manoeuvres. The aim of the Russian build-up remains unclear. It is certainly not a routine exercise. For instance, a long-range military communication system deployed near Voronezh, some 200km (125 miles) from the border with Ukraine (see map), is only used for very large units and thus "indicative of the scale of the deployment", notes Janes, a defence-intelligence company. Some units have travelled from thousands of kilometres away. Tom Bullock, an analyst at Janes, says that troops still appear to be moving towards the border.
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