The latest on the Ukraine-Russia border crisis

Russia has “probably has massed between 169,000-190,000 personnel in and near Ukraine as compared with about 100,000 on Jan. 30,” Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Friday. 

“While Russia has sought to downplay or deceive the world about their ground and air preparations, the Russian military has publicized its large-scale naval exercises in the Black Sea, Baltic Sea and the Arctic," he said.

"Russia has publicly said the Black Sea exercise alone involves more than 30 ships, and we assess that amphibious landing ships from the Northern and Baltic Fleets were sent to the Black Sea to augment forces there,” he continued.  

In the statement, Carpenter laid out seven steps he recommends the Russians fulfill in order to “reduce risk of miscalculation and lower tensions.”

The steps include:

The OSCE is a 57-member security organization that also includes the US and Canada.

The large estimate of 160,000-190,000 Russian personnel by the US includes Russian troops on the borders of Ukraine as well as the Russian-led forces in eastern Ukraine, an administration official tells CNN.

The earlier estimate this week from a senior administration official on approximately 150,000 forces was just borders and did not factor in the Russian-backed separatists.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins contributed reporting to this post.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin said his country’s military exercises are "purely defensive and do not threaten anyone."

While speaking during a joint news conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday in Moscow, Putin said joint drills with Belarus will continue until Sunday. He said both countries' defense ministries announced the "exercises well in advance."

"We discussed in detail our common defense space between Russia and Belarus. We will continue to take steps towards common defense, considering the increasing presence of NATO on the borders of our Union State," Putin said following their meeting.

The Ukrainian military took a group of journalists to the town of Stanytsia Luhanska in eastern Ukraine, where both Ukrainian armed forces and separatists controlling parts of the Donbas region reported renewed shelling on Thursday, according to CNN's Clarissa Ward.

Video and images confirmed by CNN show that a kindergarten in Ukrainian-controlled territory was hit by a shell Thursday.

CNN has established that the school is less than five kilometers (about three miles) from what is known as the Line of Contact, which separates the two sides. CNN has not established who initiated the exchange of fire. 

Watch what the CNN crew saw on the ground:

A Russian invasion of Ukraine would be “catastrophic,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Friday during his opening remarks at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, calling for diplomatic efforts to continue.

“There is no alternative to diplomacy. All issues, including the most intractable, must be addressed through diplomatic frameworks. It is high time to seriously de-escalate,” he added.

The UN secretary general also noted that “geopolitical divides continue to grow,” and called for “serious dialogues to continue.”

The Biden administration has approved a possible $6 billion sale of battle tanks and related equipment to Poland, the US State Department announced Friday amid heightened tensions in the region, and as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is in Poland.

"The proposed sale will improve Poland’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing a credible force that is capable of deterring adversaries and participating in NATO operations. Poland will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces," it said.

"The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region," it added.

US Vice President Kamala Harris, in her first bilateral meeting at the Munich Security Conference, said Friday that the United States remains open to a diplomatic resolution regarding Russian provocations in Ukraine but warned that “aggressive action” by Russia will be met with “severe consequences” of economic sanctions.

Harris, in a photo spray of her bilateral meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, also hailed the strength of NATO specifically around the issue, calling the alliance “strong.”

“Right now, we are obviously dealing with the concern about what is happening in Ukraine. As a member of NATO, we feel very strongly and will always be committed to the principal of territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Harris said.

“I am here to ensure that through our discussions and the discussions I will have with other of our allies, that we continue as these hours and days progress to stay in close contact. We understand this is a dynamic moment in time. So the work we are doing on a daily basis — and sometimes on an hourly basis to strengthen the relationship — to check in, in terms of our strategic imperative, is critically important and it’s one of the reasons I’m here,” Harris added.

Harris said that she and US President Biden “feel strong” that the NATO alliance is enduring and has been “highlighted without any question over the course of the last several months.”

“We believe that the relationship has only strengthened and as we go forward, we believe that it will continue to be one of the most critical relationships we have,” Harris added.

Harris did not answer questions from reporters.

NATO and the European Union are “not prepared” to fully uphold security guarantees, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. 

“We discussed the state of things in the European continent, including issues around Russia’s initiative of guaranteed security -- equal and undivided security -- in accordance with the principles approved at the highest level, as part of the OSCE,” Lavrov told reporters following a meeting with his Greek counterpart in Moscow.

“Unfortunately, our partners in NATO and the European Union are not prepared to uphold this in full capacity, particularly with regards to demands on each party to avoid strengthening their own security at the expense of the security of any other country,” he added. 

A day earlier, Lavrov said Russia’s core security issues must be addressed first in any negotiations with the US and NATO, before other security issues can be resolved.  

“That is NATO’s non-expansion to the East; non-placement of strike weapons; and respect to the military and political configuration at the time of signing of the founding act between Russia and NATO,” Lavrov said. 

The Russian Foreign Minister also directed criticism at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission, which has monitored the situation in Donbas, saying the mission “at first acted objectively in Donbas but then started trying to disguise events” on the ground.  

“The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission is trying to 'smooth out' the data that indicates the guilt of the Ukrainian military in violation of the ceasefire in Donbas," Lavrov said, without offering further evidence. 

Some context: The security guarantees are demands put forward by Russia on Thursday to the US in response to written proposals the US submitted to Russia three weeks ago.

In an 11-page document published by state news agency RIA-Novosti on Thursday, Moscow said the US did not provide a constructive response to its security demands and that "the increasing US and NATO military activity close to Russian borders is alarming."

"It's about giving up the further expansion of NATO," the response said.

The letter also said the US did not provide a response to their demands: "It's about giving up the further expansion of NATO, about the withdrawal of the ‘Bucharest formula’, whereby ‘Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO, and the refusal to create military bases on the territory of states formerly part of the USSR and non-members of the NATO alliance, including the use of their infrastructure to conduct any military activity, and the return of NATO military capabilities, including strike capabilities, and infrastructure to the 1997 status, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed. These stipulations are of fundamental importance to the Russian Federation.” 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko would accompany him during a military exercise Saturday. 

“Now an active phase exercise [of military drills] is underway, and tomorrow we will even take part together in one of the serious events in this complex of military cooperation,” Putin said in a televised meeting with Lukashenko in Moscow.

Earlier Friday, the Russian defense ministry announced that Putin would oversee exercises of the strategic deterrence forces involving the launch of ballistic and cruise missiles. Putin gave no further specifics regarding the exercise in his remarks with Lukashenko.

Russia and Belarus have made “serious progress” in merging the political and economic structures of their two countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday during a meeting with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. 

“We have made serious progress in the construction of the 'Union State,'” Putin said. “Our colleagues have worked hard and have prepared 28 good programs, and development has been going on in many of these areas for a long time."

The two leaders have overseen efforts to deepen the integration of the two countries as part of a longstanding project to develop a so-called "Union State," and Putin noted updated bilateral initiatives in migration, economy, and military matters, among other items.