Russia’s Shifting of Border Force Stirs U.S. Worry

By MARK LANDLER

The White House cast doubt Friday on the Kremlin’s claims that thousands of troops massing on the border of southeastern Ukraine are merely involved in training exercises, deepening fears that Russian aggression will not end in Crimea. “It’s not clear what that signals,” the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, said to reporters in a briefing at the White House. But she added, “Obviously given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism.”

At the Pentagon, senior officers and analysts said they were monitoring the Russian infantry, airborne, air defense and other reinforcements with growing alarm, uncertain of President Vladimir V. Putin’s ambitions.

Pentagon officials do not believe that a new Russian move into Ukraine is imminent. But one of their big worries is that American and NATO officials would have virtually no time to react if it did happen. All told, officials said, there are more than 20,000 troops near the border.

“The Russian forces are reinforcing and bulking up along the eastern Ukrainian border,” a Pentagon official said. “Our view is they’re preserving all their options, including going in, absolutely. If they choose to do that, we just wouldn’t have much warning.”

President Obama cited the troop movements on Thursday in announcing new sanctions against officials with ties to Mr. Putin and in opening the door to broader measures against key industrial sectors. He warned Russia against further incursions after its annexation of Crimea. Ms. Rice’s comments, which set the stage for Mr. Obama’s trip to Europe next week, suggested that the tensions between the United States and Russia were continuing to intensify. Asked if the Ukraine crisis was prompting a “fundamental reassessment” of America’s relationship with Russia, she answered in a single word: “Yes.”

Russia’s integration into the global political and economic order after the Cold War, Ms. Rice said, was predicated on its adherence to international rules and norms. “What we have seen in Ukraine is obviously a very egregious departure from that,” she said. Her comments were among the bluntest of any ranking administration official since the crisis began, and were even more striking because they came hours after Mr. Putin signaled that he wanted to halt the cycle of tit-for-tat retribution between Moscow and Washington.

The White House, it seems, is paying less attention to Mr. Putin’s words than to the movement of his troops, described as a mix of infantry, motorized and airborne forces. Officials also worry about clashes with Ukrainian soldiers, who are increasingly agitated. Ukrainian officials have told American officials that Russia could use that as a pretext to move.

“This is obviously a very worrying and fragile situation,” Ms. Rice said, “but we have been very much admiring of the posture that the Ukrainian people and government have been taking.”

On Thursday, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, told Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that “the troops he has arrayed along the border are there to conduct exercises only, that they had no intention of crossing the border into Ukraine, and that they would take no aggressive action,” according to the Pentagon’s press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby. Mr. Hagel has held several urgent calls with Ukraine’s defense minister, Ihor Tenyukh, and told him Friday that the Pentagon was reviewing a request for military assistance. Ukrainian officials have asked for small arms and ammunition, as well as nonlethal aid like medical supplies. The Pentagon said it was focusing on nonlethal aid. On Wednesday, Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, called Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to warn him about the mounting tensions in the country’s east. Mr. Biden was then on a two-day trip to Poland and the Baltic States to reassure them of American support in the wake of Russia’s moves against Ukraine.

He encountered deep divisions among Europeans about how swiftly to impose sanctions on Russia. Estonia’s president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, urged his fellow leaders to act boldly, but officials in Poland and Lithuania were more cautious, citing energy contracts with Russia. The European Union stepped up its own sanctions, adding 12 Russian officials to its list of 21 blacklisted figures. But it did not penalize wealthy business people with ties to Mr. Putin, whom the White House describes as cronies. Part of the reason, a senior administration official said, is that Europe has different legal criteria for penalizing such people. The “cronies” tend to have assets stashed in Europe, which makes putting them on a blacklist more complicated.

Ms. Rice said the European Union’s latest move “very much matches the theory behind the executive order that President Obama signed yesterday, which gave us and gives us the ability as needed to target particular sectors within the Russian economy.”

In addition to targeting those close to Mr. Putin with sanctions, the White House hopes to drive away foreign investors. In that regard, the best news the White House might have gotten was an announcement on Thursday by Standard & Poor’s, the ratings agency, that it had downgraded its outlook for the Russian economy to negative.

Ms. Rice was not among three White House officials banned from Russia by the Foreign Ministry in response to Mr. Obama’s sanctions. One of the officials who was — Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser — stood next to her at the briefing.

While Ms. Rice inveighed against Russia, Mr. Rhodes offered a businesslike recitation of the president’s schedule next week, which includes a meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican, with King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia and with the leaders of the Group of 7 countries in The Hague — a club in which Russia is normally the eighth member. “Of course,” Mr. Rhodes said, “the meeting itself is part of our isolation of Russia.”