Hagel is currently in Guatemala on a three-day trip to Central America. Pentagon to Russia: Call us, please?

Russia’s Ministry of Defense has so far ignored the Pentagon’s efforts to set up a phone call between the nations’ top defense officials as its military activity increases near Ukraine, the Defense Department said Friday.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said that American defense officials called Moscow to arrange a phone call between Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoygu, but haven’t gotten any response.


Meanwhile, Warren said, the U.S. has observed increased activity among the Russian ground and air units posted near the country’s border with Ukraine. Armor, mechanized infantry and airborne units are on the move, he said.

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“We’ve tried to make clear to the Russians that Secretary Hagel is available for a phone call anytime, but we have not heard back,” Warren said. The Pentagon made its overture “within the past 24 hours,” he added.

Hagel is in Guatemala on a three-day trip to Central America, but defense officials have said his military aircraft, designed as a flying Cold War command and control center, would enable him to connect from anywhere. He doesn’t have a new message to deliver to Moscow, Warren said, but he wants to reiterate the same one again.

“The secretary wants to continue to call on the Russians to de-escalate the situation with Ukraine,” Warren said.

Reports about the increased Russian military activity come from “multiple sources,” Warren said. The Russian military movements include both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters — “all flavors of the Russian combined arms force,” he said.

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The uptick in activity could be linked with Russian announcements that Moscow is planning new military exercises of its own to coincide with the arrival of American paratroopers in Eastern Europe. A second company of about 150 soldiers from the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) arrived Friday in Latvia, following an earlier detachment that flew to Poland.

Two more similar-sized companies are due in Estonia and Lithuania by Monday, the Pentagon said.

Hagel first mentioned his desire to talk with Shoygu on Thursday during a stop in Mexico City. He said he wanted to ask the Russians directly about U.S. intelligence reports about the increased military activity on the border.

“I don’t have all of the facts,” he said, “but, in fact, if these reports that I’ve received are accurate, then this is dangerously destabilizing. And it’s very provocative. It does not de-escalate. In fact, these activities escalate. They make it more difficult to try to find a diplomatic, peaceful resolution … to that issue.”