Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine announced on Friday afternoon a “mass evacuation” of residents to Russian territory, following heavy exchanges of fire between rebels and the Ukrainian army in the region. Russian media reported that Vladimir Putin had instructed his ministers to open the shelters to residents coming from the Donbas region.
Ukraine and the separatists today reported heavy shelling in the east of the country, for the second day in a row. The parties blame each other for the escalation, and the West estimates that the escalation may be part of Russia’s “excuse” to invade Ukraine, an invasion the United States believes will occur in the coming days.
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A house in a village in eastern Ukraine that was bombed by separatists
(Photo: AFP)
A diplomat, familiar with the details of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, said the exchange of fire on the front in the Donbas region in the last two days was the worst since the fighting in 2015 – so the parties agreed on a ceasefire, which has since been violated many times. The diplomatic source told Reuters that close to 600 explosions were heard in the area this morning – compared to about 500 yesterday. During the exchange of fire, artillery weapons, including mortars, were used, and fire was opened from tanks. “Everyone is shooting, and shooting everything. There has been no such thing since 2014-15,” the source said.
So far no casualties have been reported. Shells fired by the rebels reportedly hit a kindergarten in a village controlled by the Ukrainian government, but no one was injured. Additional buildings in the village were also damaged.
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A kindergarten bombed by an exchange of fire between the rebels and the Ukrainian army. There were no casualties
(Photo: Reuters)
According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in the last day, there have been close to 600 violations of the ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and separatists. The parties have blamed each other for breaches of the terms of the agreement.
The rebels, it will be recalled, occupied the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in the midst of the war that began between them and the government in Kiev in 2014, following the revolution in which pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted. Millions of citizens, mostly Russian-speaking, live in Luhansk and Donetsk.
The rebels receive political and military support from Moscow. They established two “People’s Republics” in Luhansk and Donetsk, demanding independence for the territories under their control. In recent years, Russia has granted Russian citizenship to more than half a million residents in the separatist region, and the West fears that, as it has done in Georgia in the past, it will take advantage of this to claim it must invade Ukraine and help rebels protect its citizens.
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Separatist fighters in Donetsk
(Photo: Reuters)
Following the shelling, in the afternoon the separatist leaders in Donetsk and Luhansk announced that residents living in the line of fire would be evacuated to Russia. Shortly afterwards, an alarm was sounded in the Donetsk city area. Shortly afterwards, the Russian media reported a “big explosion” near a separatist government building. Local authorities claim it was a car bomb that exploded.
Dennis Pushilin, head of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, said Russia had agreed to provide asylum to residents. He noted that women, children and the elderly would be the first to evacuate from the shelling area. The scope of the evacuation is not yet clear. The Russian news agency Interfax reported today that “several hundred thousand people” plan to leave the territory of the “People’s Republic of Donetsk” and reach the Rostov region of Russia. After 5 p.m., the news agency reported that the evacuation had begun, with the separatists concentrating children in an orphanage to evacuate them to Russia.
Shortly after Pushilin’s announcement, Leonid Pasnik, the leader of the Luhansk People’s Republic, issued a similar statement. “To prevent civilian casualties I call on all residents of the Republic to leave as soon as possible for the territory of the Russian Federation,” said Leonid Pasnik. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had no information on the evacuation of residents from eastern Ukraine to Russia.
Against the backdrop of tensions, the U.S. has warned in recent days that Russia is planning “false flag” operations in Ukrainian territory – that is, staged attacks against separatist forces – so that it has “justification” for invasion.
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A house in a village in eastern Ukraine that was bombed by separatists
(Photo: AFP)
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived at a UN Security Council hearing yesterday, saying: “Russia plans to produce an excuse for its attack. This could be a violent action that Russia will accuse Ukraine of, or a shocking accusation by Russia against the Ukrainian government. We do not know exactly in what form this will happen. “It could be a staged ‘terrorist’ attack on Russia’s territory, a false discovery of a mass grave, a staged UAV attack on civilians or a fake – or real – attack using chemical weapons. Russia could describe this incident as ethnic cleansing or genocide.” .
Blinken attended the Munich Security Conference today, an annual conference attended by country leaders. Blinken said at the conference that Russia has been producing “false provocations” in Ukraine for the past 48 hours. Russia has not sent representatives to the security conference in Munich – according to the BBC for the first time since 1999.
Ukraine claims that the rebels, and the Kremlin, are creating provocations and dragging Kiev into escalation. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kolba has claimed that Russia is spreading lies and claims that Kiev is planning to carry out attacks in eastern Ukraine in order to have an “excuse” for the invasion. The US administration this week warned of “lies” published by the Kremlin, mentioning that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that “genocide” was taking place in the Donbass region.
At a press conference in the Kremlin today Putin said today that he recognizes a “deterioration of the situation” in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s president has made a string of unfounded allegations of “systematic and mass human rights abuses” and “discrimination against the Russian-speaking population” in Ukraine, and called on Kiev to negotiate with separatists.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zlansky, visiting the front in Donetsk
(Photo: API)
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zlansky, visiting the front in Donetsk
(Photo: API)
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zlansky, visiting the front in Donetsk
(Photo: API)
Meanwhile, Russia has announced that Putin will watch tomorrow in a major exercise of the Russian military’s “strategic nuclear forces” – which will use cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. A Kremlin spokesman said Putin would watch the exercise from the Defense Ministry’s situation room, claiming it was a “routine” exercise unrelated to the escalation.
In the West, Russia’s claims in recent days of a partial withdrawal of its forces from the border with Ukraine have been rejected. The U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said at noon that the number of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine had risen significantly in the past two weeks, and tens of thousands more had arrived in the area – contrary to Moscow’s statements.
“We estimate that Russia probably concentrated between 169,000 and 190,000 people in and near Ukraine, compared to about 100,000 on January 30,” Michael Carpenter said. “The assessment includes military forces along the border, in Belarus and the occupied Crimean peninsula (which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014), the Russian National Guard and other security units in these regions and the pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine. The Second World. ”
Carpenter said the U.S. is “aware that Russia intends to produce an excuse that would justify an invasion of Ukraine.” “We have reports from many sources that provide details about Russia’s efforts to stage ‘Ukrainian provocations’ and shape the political narrative that would justify a Russian invasion.”