KYIV, Ukraine—Russia is transferring to considerably bolster its forces in Ukraine as its marketing campaign to safe territory within the nation’s east and south stalls forward of deliberate plebiscites on annexation by Russia.
A sequence of volunteer battalions shaped in latest weeks throughout Russia is making ready to deploy to Ukraine, officers and army analysts say, together with a serious new ground-forces formation known as the third Military Corps supposed to shore up a brand new offensive in jap Ukraine and reinforce troops holding off a Ukrainian counteroffensive within the south.