Why are you the only person to bring this up... Nobody seems to notice that these troop numbers have been almost identical (until yesterday) since April. There's some serious propaganda (by omission) going on here.
Well I live next to Ukraine so the situation is closer to home so to say. Not everyone has such interest in the situation.
That said, current numbers are already much much higher than last spring.
What numbers are identical? The Russian movement is completely unprecedented since the end of the Cold War. Moving massive numbers of MD East units all to over Belarus over the last days and weeks is an enormous logistical display by Russia.
Yes and that was mostly on the eastern border. Now there is (at least?) twice that including massive movement (200 trains us a number circulating now) of troops and equipment from as far as the eastern military district all the way to Belarus.
For comparison the whole Zapad excercise was ~30 trains.
Yes, I'm talking about the recent movements (North of Ukraine, from the eastern MD mostly). Which are of course extremely uncertain. And all that is seen is obviously trains with vehicles, not troops - so reports of e.g. "100k troops" are referring to (I'm assuming) the number of vehcicles, whether or not the troops have arrived or not, as they arrive later than the vehciles on the train. Keeping people fed and housed when waiting is a lot harder and more expensive than keeping tanks and APCs parked.