The following is a partial transcript of the noon briefing for the press at the State Department concerning the subject of Ukraine and Russia, which has just been distributed.

QUESTION: Ukraine —

QUESTION: Has there been – has anyone asked for the assistance that you offered?

MS. PSAKI: I’m not aware of, but we’ve just offered to be helpful if we can be helpful.

Go ahead.

QUESTION: Ukraine.

MS. PSAKI: Sure.

QUESTION:

Earlier today the Russian ambassador to the United Nations denied that

Russian armed vehicles were crossing into Ukraine. How do you respond to

that?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I have a couple of updated details here, so let me run through those for you.

We are confident, as we said

last Friday, that Russia last week sent takes [sic] and rocket launchers from a

deployment site in southwest Russia into eastern Ukraine. We have

information that additional tanks have been prepared for departure from

this same deployment site, and that’s more recently. We also have

information that Russia has accumulated artillery at a deployment site

in southwest Russia, including a type of artillery utilized by Ukrainian

forces but no longer in Russia’s active forces, and believe Russia may

soon provide this equipment to separatist fighters.

And we are obviously closely

watching what we are seeing on the ground. I would also point you to the

comments of NATO Secretary General Rasmussen yesterday, who said we are

seeing a new Russian military buildup of at least a few thousand more

troops deployed at the Ukrainian border, and there are troop maneuvers

near the border with Ukraine.

And separately, we have our own

information that Russia has redeployed military forces to its border

with Ukraine. This is the closest Russian troops have come to the

Ukrainian territory since their invasion of Crimea.

So that is our view from the United States.

QUESTION:

The Russians say that the troop buildup that you and NATO have spoken

about is simply a border guard reinforcing and that they need to have –

they need to be reinforced because of the flow of – in some places, the

flow of people – refugees, some of them – across the border. You don’t

buy that? Is that —

MS. PSAKI:

Well, first, I think one step we’ve been asking President Putin and the

Russians to be supportive of is securing the border, and what we’re

seeing is a flow of individuals into Ukraine with materials and

equipment and tanks, as we’ve been speaking about. In terms of the

refugee numbers, we’ve looked into Russian reports of large numbers of

refugees fleeing Russia and have seen no evidence to —

QUESTION: No, no, no. Fleeing Ukraine.

MS. PSAKI: Fleeing for –

fleeing to Russia, sorry, fleeing to Russia, and have seen no evidence

to substantiate them. According to the Russian Federal Migration Service

itself, just over 5,000 people from Ukraine have applied for asylum in

Russia since January. And the numbers – some Russian sources are

claiming numbers more like 100,000. So we’re talking about the last six

months, I guess, since January. And many ethnic Russians from Ukraine

have family in Russia. Some may be staying with them, but neither

Ukrainian border guards nor international organizations operating in the

area have reported any large outflows of refugees to Russia to

substantiate their claim.

QUESTION: Okay. So but –

excuse me – apparently there was a meeting this morning of their –

whatever the Russian Government committee is that deals with refugees,

and they’re talking – I think they – unless I’m wrong, I think they were

talking about 9,000 or something like that. But to the best of your

knowledge, you’re saying that you have seen the only – you’ve seen

nothing like this, that there is no mass exodus or even close to

thousands that are crossing the border from Ukraine into Russia, fleeing

their homes or fighting? Is that —

MS. PSAKI: Correct. And

it’s not – obviously, just to clarify, though, it’s not the – we’re not

monitoring this ourselves, obviously. But the Ukrainian border guards

are as well as international organizations who are in the area.

QUESTION:

Okay. Does that mean that you don’t have any concern about the

situation in terms of what it means for civilians in the east right now?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I think

certainly we have concern, and – but we think the most effective and

powerful step the Russians can take is to call on separatists to lay

down their arms and to help secure the border. And obviously those are

the steps that we think would reduce the violence and tension in the

east.

QUESTION: Okay. Earlier

today a senior official was telling people that in addition to what you

just said about more tanks, additional tanks being prepared for – to be

transferred to the separatists, that some, in fact, as of yesterday had

actually moved away from this – from the site in southwest Russia. Do

you know (1) how many, and (2) in what direction they were moving – I

mean, and moving toward Ukraine?

MS. PSAKI: Well, to be

clear, we have information about – which I referred to specifically –

about preparing for departure from the same deployment site. We’ve seen

reports about additional Russian tanks, rocket launchers, and other

military equipment crossing the border into Luhansk. I don’t have

specific numbers, and those are reports. The other details are more

confirmed internally.

QUESTION: But – okay, I’m

a little confused now. So you don’t know that there are – that the

tanks have actually left this site in southwest Russia?

MS. PSAKI: There are

reports that they have. We know that they are preparing to depart, so –

but the reports are reports. I don’t have anything in —

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. PSAKI: — confirmation of those. There are reports out there that we’ve seen.

QUESTION:

In his conversation with Foreign Minister Fabius, you said that

Secretary Kerry talked about the Poroshenko ceasefire, which he has now

ordered a start of. The Russians have come back just within the last

half hour or so and said that this looks like an ultimatum and doesn’t

really look like a ceasefire. Can you be more – can you elaborate on –

more on what you think, what you – what the Administration thinks of the

ceasefire proposal, whether it’s an ultimatum or it’s a challenge and

not really a ceasefire?

MS. PSAKI:

Well, it’s a unilateral ceasefire, and certainly they need a partner in

order to – for it to be effective. But these are steps taken by

President Poroshenko and the Ukrainian Government to provide a path to

de-escalation. Obviously, the Russian separatists – or Russian-backed

separatists – would need to be a partner in that, as would the Russians,

in order to – for it to be effective on both sides.

QUESTION:

Okay. And then have you seen since – recognizing it’s only a couple

hours old now – but have you seen any indication from the Russians that

they’re willing to now take steps to – that you think would de-escalate

the situation?

MS. PSAKI: We have not seen new steps, and, in fact, I’ve pointed to some escalatory steps.

QUESTION: So in fact, they’re doing the opposite of what you say they should be doing?

MS. PSAKI: Correct.

QUESTION: All right. And still – there’s still no trigger, though, for these sectoral sanctions?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I know

we announced the sanctioning of seven new individuals this morning.

Early next week, as I noted, the Secretary will be at the NATO

ministerial meeting where Ukraine will be a big part of that

conversation, and there will also be a range of meetings among Europeans

next week, so we certainly expect these issues to be a big topic of

conversation.

QUESTION: So is this ambassador – this Russian ambassador to the United Nations, is he lying?

MS. PSAKI: I will let you put labels out there, Lucas, but I conveyed to you what we know as the United States.

QUESTION: Can I ask you a question?

MS. PSAKI: Sure.

QUESTION: I don’t know that you’ll be able to answer this, and you may want to just —

MS. PSAKI: Sure.

QUESTION: — refer it to Treasury, where I’ve already asked the question —

MS. PSAKI: Okay.

QUESTION: — and not

gotten an answer. The seven individuals who were identified in the

Treasury release and in a separate kind of fact sheet about them, and it

has information like dates of birth, in some cases places of birth.

Only one of the seven – for only one of the seven is the citizenship of

the individual specified. That person is Russian. Who are the other –

what is the nationality of the other six?

MS. PSAKI: It’s a good

question. I don’t know it off the top of my head. I will follow up with

them and see if that’s information that we can provide. As was noted in

there with the details in the press release, it’s more related to the

actions, and some of them are Russian-backed, so – but I will see if

there’s more we can provide.

QUESTION: Jen, who’s taking escalatory measures, the Russians or the Russian separatists?

MS. PSAKI: Well,

certainly the Russian separatists. But again, there’s no question in our

view that Russia has the ability to call on them to lay down their arms

and to secure the border, and there’s more that they can do to promote a

de-escalatory process.

QUESTION: I have one more on Russia.

MS. PSAKI: Sure, go ahead. Go ahead, Ali.

QUESTION:

In Russia, in the region, there was sort of the latest example of

Russia’s fabrication of stories. I would also defer to Matt on this line

of questioning, because it involved him, but –

QUESTION: I just wanted to stay clear of it, but go ahead.

QUESTION: But I just want to get your take on it, and what do you make of that story that was out there today.

MS. PSAKI:

Well, to be clear, and I used social media to tweet about this earlier

today, but there was a report about comments I made that were comments I

never made, and so I would first clarify that. But I would say broadly

speaking that the tactics of fabricated news stories and a range of

vicious personal attacks that I and others have been a victim of are not

steps you take when you’re operating from a position of strength. And

there’s no question that the more we talk about our support for a

strong, sovereign Ukraine, the greater the attacks become, so I will

leave it to others to draw their own conclusions on that front.