Satellite images released Friday by a private U.S.-based company are showing several large deployments of Russian ground forces, almost 150 ground attack and transport helicopters, as well as support equipment amassed in southern Belarus.
The equipment and troops were revealed in satellite images shared with Newsmax by Maxar Technologies, a company that has tracked the Russian forces buildup for weeks. The images were taken about 20 miles from the Belarus-Ukraine border and less than 100 miles from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
The images show one large helicopter deployment near the Belarussian town of Chojniki, containing more than 90 helicopters, which are parked in a line on a road with the deployment stretching out for more than five miles.
Further, to the northeast of Chojniki, a "large deployment of ground forces with several hundred vehicles is seen in convoy position in several fields, and another set of more than 50 helicopters, as well as more troops and equipment, were shown at the V.D. Bolshoy Bokov airfield near Mazyr, Belarus.
Maxar said its images shared so far only come from a small part of the overall deployment, which extends over a large area, and that they all come from the company's WorldView-1 satellite, which produces images in back and white.
The images were released after the Kremlin on Friday said Russia's President Vladimir Putin is willing to send a delegation for talks with Ukraine in Belarus, hours after he spoke with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, reports Fortune and Bloomberg.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Putin is willing to discuss a proposal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss neutrality through a delegation to Minsk, the Belarusian capital.
Kyiv has not yet responded to Moscow's announcement.
Chinese state TV reported earlier that Xi urged Russia and Ukraine to negotiate, and claimed Beijing supports the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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