The guards tank army of the Western Military District at the Golovenki range outside Moscow will celebrate their 78th birthday with a field firing practice on a BMP-2 amphibious infantry fighting vehicle.
The White House said Friday that intelligence agencies believe Russia could launch a ground invasion of Ukraine within the next 30 days.
The Biden administration believes that a Russian attack against Ukraine could be imminent and that it needs to negotiate a peaceful settlement.
The U.S. will respond to any military incursion with economic sanctions on members of the Russian President's inner circle. Moscow could retaliate by cutting the energy that flows from Russia to the rest of the world. Russia supplies oil, natural gas, and coal to Europe.
The press secretary said that analysts had first noticed a spike in December in coordinated social media misinformation aimed at destabilizing the Ukrainian government.
The Russian military is planning to begin these activities several weeks before a military invasion.
The revelation came just hours after Russian cyber operatives disabled the main government agency websites in Ukraine, replacing them with a message to all Ukrainians that read, in part: "Be afraid and expect the worst." This is for your past, present and future.
The threat facing Ukraine is much more serious than just a cyberattack. There are more than 200,000 Russian troops in the country. The potential for many different invasion routes is seen by U.S. military analysts.
The American intelligence agencies believe that Russia is about to conduct a false flag operation in Eastern Ukraine. The operatives are trained in urban warfare and use explosives to sabotage Russia's own proxy forces.
The Russian operatives are part of a larger effort by Moscow that is laying the groundwork to have the option of invasion of Ukraine.
Russian proxies on social media are accusing the Ukrainians of preparing for an attack against Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine, which is part of the false narrative.
If the Russian operatives were to carry out a stealth attack on Russian-backed forces in Ukraine, Moscow could point to its prior accusation and blame the Ukrainians for the attack.
The United States and Russia have a close relationship with the government of Ukraine, which has a population of 44 million.
The latest revelations came after a number of high-stakes discussions between the US and European officials and their Russian counterparts.
Russian troops were massing along the eastern border of the U.S. and European allies. The annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea by Russia triggered an international uproar and led to a series of sanctions on Moscow.
Russia was removed from the G-8, a group of eight major global economies, because of the seizure of the peninsula.
The Biden administration has warned that the US is prepared to impose more economic sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine.
Wendy Sherman, the deputy Secretary of State, said Monday that they are ready to impose those severe costs.
Sherman told reporters on a conference call that the sanctions look to target key Russian financial institutions and export controls on important industries.
Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that the Biden administration was coordinating measures with NATO allies, the European Council and the G-7 members.
NATO states that an attack on one member country is considered an attack on all of them, if it is carried out by someone other than a NATO member.
Russian officials said in a press briefing this week that it is mandatory to make sure that Ukraine never becomes a member of NATO.
We need ironclad, waterproof, bulletproof guarantees. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that guarantees were not assurances.
Despite the deployment of thousands of troops along the Ukrainian border, the Russian president has insisted that Moscow is not preparing for an invasion. Putin has defended the right to deploy troops on Russia's borders and accused NATO of escalating tensions by building up armies in states adjacent to Russia.
NATO's eastward expansion poses security threats to Moscow, according to Russia.
President Joe Biden spoke with Putin twice last month. Biden declined to accept Putin's "red lines" on Ukraine during the first call.
The leaders had a call on Dec. 30 where Biden renewed his threats that his administration would respond with force if Russia invaded Ukraine.
CNBC's Patti Domm contributed to the story.
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