Russia, Pulling Out All The Stops

Soldiers inspect the remains of a car that the Russian-backed separatists claim was blown up outside their headquarters in Donetsk. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

 

"[NATO and European leaders shared a call with me to discuss] Russia’s buildup of military troops on the border of Ukraine and our continued efforts to pursue deterrence and diplomacy."

"The bottom line is this: The United States and our allies and partners will support the Ukrainian people."

"We will hold Russia accountable for its actions. The West is united and resolved. We’re ready to impose severe sanctions on Russia if it further invades Ukraine."

U.S. President Joe Biden

 

"While of limited impact, this recent spate of cyber attacks in Ukraine are consistent with what a Russian effort could look like, and laying the groundwork for more disruptive cyberattacks accompanying a potential further invasion of Ukraine sovereign territory."

Deputy U.S. National Security adviser for cyber and emerging technology Anne Neuberger 

"[Moscow-backed separatists were] placing its artillery systems near residential buildings [in the hope Kyiv's forces would return fire."

"A day earlier, the Russian-backed separatists were responsible for] a big provocation [after the shelling of a kindergarten in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government."

"We are constantly faced with provocations, shelling, cyberattacks, dangerous maneuvers of aviation, disabling of mobile communications."

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov

Several hundred thousand citizens in the breakaway republics have been issued Russian passports in recent years. Nikolai Trishin / TASS

"The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will soon order the military to go on the offensive, implement a plan to invade the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics."

"Their weapons are pointed at civilians today."

"Women, children and the elderly are to be evacuated first."

"[Evacuation into the neighboring Rostov region has been coordinated with] Russian leadership."

Denis Pushilin, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic

 

"All Kyiv has to do is sit down at the negotiation table with representatives of the Donbas and agree on political, military, economic and humanitarian measures to end the conflict."

Russian President Vladimir Putin   

People inside a bus arranged to evacuate local residents from the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

"Unfortunately, we don’t have a cellar, but we heard the first noises, the teachers quickly took all the children and rushed them into the corridor where there are no windows, and got them all to lie on the floor."

"Then we felt the close-up hit, the building shook and we could hear smashed glass. There was real hysteria, the children were all screaming."

Elena Yaryna, School head teacher, Vrubivka, Eastern Ukraine

Russia is fully engaged in exploring all possible scenarios where it can cast blame on Ukraine for provoking Russia into a conflict that Russia itself purportedly has ostensibly no wish to pursue. But, should Kyiv continue to tax Russia's patience and goodwill to force its neighbour into a war situation, Russia will not flinch, but will enter battle to protect its interests; namely its territory in Crimea, and the lives and future of ethnic Russian Ukrainians in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Ukraine continues to push Russia into this impossible situation where it must engage militarily for its own security and that of its people and its territories. The Ukrainian military given orders to continue shelling positions in Donetsk and Luhansk, endangering the lives of residents there and pushing the leaders of those territories, now separate from Ukraine, to defend themselves. Ukraine forces bombing an elementary school. These scurrilous attacks on innocent people by Kyiv-ordered military are quite simply intolerable.

Or they would be, if they weren't set-ups, like the bombing of a vehicle supposedly belonging to one of the separatist leaders, all leading to incredible  reasons why Moscow has been pushed to its limits to respond to Ukrainian aggression. An aggression meant to drive out the leaders of Luhanks and Donetsk, meant to drive Russia away from the Crimean Peninsula so critical to Russia's interests. Fierce aggression on the part of Ukraine has driven the leaders of the People's Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk to consider the safety of civilians, two million people who now must be evacuated.

That's the perspective of the Russian propaganda published in Russia for the edification of Russians who have no wish to engage in a war with their neighbour but whom their government thinks of as being credulous enough to believe what it claims. For they are either patriotic, loyal to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin, or they are traitors to the Russian Federation. Moscow claims the move to evacuate Russian Ukrainians to feed a sense of panic meant to lead to 'defensive' moves against Ukrainian aggression, was not discussed beforehand with their leadership.

A big surprise, although Moscow has offered to each of the evacuees, a bonus gift of 10,000 rubles (equivalent to US$130), food, lodging and medical care. Uprooting two million people to 'prove' that the situation is so dangerously dire as a result of Ukrainian aggression that such a desperate action is needed and justifiable. There was a response from the U.S., the administration characterizing the evacuation as a "cynical" move by Moscow.

"Announcements like these are further attempts to obscure through lies and disinformation that Russia is the aggressor in this conflict", clarified a State Department spokesperson. "It is also cynical and cruel to use human beings as pawns to distract the world from the fact that Russia is building up its forces in preparation for an attack."

But there it is; civilians packed onto buses in eastern Ukraine, headed for Russia. Russia took measures years ago to issue Russian passports to ethnic Russian Ukrainians in the Donbass. Manipulating people on such a large-scale basis to further Mr. Putin's plan of manoeuvring Ukraine into a response that would ignite the conflict he is so determined to launch is, in very fact, not only cynical but cruel. A testament to his incorrigible aspirations to absorb Ukraine once again into the Russian Federation.

"There are no orders to liberate our territories by force", responded Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine's top security authority. Families were ordered to assemble to board buses at an evacuation point in Donetsk where the intention is to have 700,000 people transported to Russia. Some refuse to go; male civilians are urged to join the separatists to fight for their country, and the country they're urged to fight for is not Ukraine. "This is my motherland and the land is ours, I will stay and put out the fires", said 62-year-old Konstantin Lysanov.

Intense artillery bombardment has unsettled residents. Ukraine states that the separatist rebel militias initiated the violence, and Ukraine is accused by the militia leaders of Donetsk and Luhansk of launching the original volleys. As far as the West is concerned, the shelling which intensified in recent days would be just another attempt by Vladimir Putin's government for a pretext to justify an attack on Ukraine. 

Of the former 14 republics under Russian control during the days of the USSR, Ukraine's decision to leave Russia for independence was Russia's most painful loss, one that Mr. Putin refers to as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the last century when the Soviet Union dissolved. He has set his legacy aspiration on restoring Russia's global power standing through defiance of the West. As a result, fear of a wider war in Europe has affected markets and produced a diplomatic crisis. 

"We see additional forces going to the border including leading edge forces", U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed the Munich Security Conference, noting that American intelligence assesses that Russia now has about 50 percent of its total forces assembled to confront Ukraine on all fronts across its vast territory bordering Russia and Belarus and the separatist territories. "This is the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the Second World War", U.S. ambassador Michael Carpenter noted.