Ukraine; their flight times would be four to five minutes, according to him. However, Putin did not acknowledge that the West's Aegis Ashore sites in Poland and Romania are for defense against ballistic missiles, and not the Tomahawk missiles which he named in his statement. See: A-135 anti-ballistic missile system, A-235 anti-ballistic missile system, S-400 missile system, S-500 missile system To prove that Aegis Ashore is defensive only, inspection of the sites in Poland and Romania have been offered to Russia. Ukraine had a trench network on its border with Russia, in a standoff as of April 2021. A border exercise involving 110,000 Russian troops on the Ukraine border has pulled back; however hundreds of armored vehicles, including tanks are remaining one hundred miles from Donbas (colloquial for Donets basin) in spite of a partial armor pullback. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) drones which are monitoring the line between Ukrainian troops and the Donbas separatists are seeing jamming of their drone's dual GPS receivers, with tens of thousands of infantry troops remaining on the Ukrainian border. The OSCE has provided a map of the line dividing the Ukrainian forces and the Russian-backed forces. As of 18 February 2022 there were up to 190,000 troops along Ukraine's borders; after recognizing the separatist states of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Moscow is moving troops over the border of Russia into the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, and establishing military bases there. This troop movement triggered sanctions on five Russian banks and three individuals, on 22 February 2022. (See 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine which began 24 February 2022) Andrei Illarionov cites Pavel Felgengauer, who projects a scenario by which Russia can create a 'Novorossia' (see § CSIS figures 2a-2c) stretching across Southern Ukraine to Transnistria (Moldova) after a gas pipeline to the EU is completed (September 2021). If the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline were to be weaponized by holding the liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply to Western Europe hostage, the US is countering this threat with contingency plans to redirect LNG supplies from the rest of the world. Germany has agreed to safeguard Ukraine, as well. See 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage —26 September 2022 Cyber attacks on Ukrainian government websites are occurring in January 2022. Frida Ghitis and Richard Galant point out that the muddy season that ends winter would bog down an armored invasion. US Army