OREANDA-NEWS. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called "highly likely" Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine, despite the fact that Russian troops began to return to their places of permanent deployment after the end of the exercises.

Earlier, the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, told reporters that the Southern and Western military districts of the Russian Federation began returning troops to their places of deployment after the exercises. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that Kiev would believe in the de-escalation of the security situation at the borders when it sees the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian border.

"I haven't seen the reports you're talking about (returning troops). Our latest intelligence is that an 'invasion' could happen soon. It's highly likely, we've seen hundreds of thousands of troops pulled up to the border "Meanwhile, the Russian government claims they have no plans to invade Ukraine, but we need to see a full-scale withdrawal of troops to show that this is true," Truss said on LBC radio.

The British tabloids Sun and Mirror, citing American intelligence data, claim that, despite the statements of the Russian Ministry of Defense about the withdrawal of troops after the exercises, the "invasion of Ukraine" is allegedly scheduled for three o'clock in the morning Wednesday local time.

"The Russian invasion is scheduled for 3am tomorrow local time with tank and missile attacks," reads the headline of the published Mirror article, citing US intelligence sources who allegedly told the publication's staff in Kiev. In the introduction to the text, already without indicating the sources, it is already stated that "the invasion will begin on Wednesday at noon." The difference is not explained.

The newspaper's sources in US intelligence "suggest" that airstrikes "may" be launched against military and government command posts, followed by a tank offensive, and ships "may" storm the southern coast of Ukraine.