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Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has released a statement ahead of the Munich security conference (which we mention in our post here), which starts today. She criticises Russia for its “cold war demands” and for declining to attend the meeting.
“With an unprecedented deployment of troops on the border with Ukraine and cold war demands, Russia is challenging fundamental principles of the European peace order,” Baerbock said in a statement.
“I am travelling to Munich today to discuss how we can still counter the logic of threats of violence and military escalation with the logic of dialogue ... It is a loss that Russia is not taking advantage of this opportunity.”
US denounces Bolsonaro's 'solidarity' with Russia
The United States has criticised Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s declaration of “solidarity” with Russia during a visit there this week.
The State Department said in a statement, as reported by Reuters:
The timing of the president of Brazil expressing solidarity with Russia, just as Russian forces are preparing to launch attacks on Ukrainian cities, could not be worse.
It undermines international diplomacy directed at averting a strategic and humanitarian disaster, as well as Brazil’s own calls for a peaceful resolution to the crisis.”
Brazil’s foreign ministry and spokespeople for Bolsonaro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday, during his state visit to Russia, Bolsonaro said in a statement he was “in solidarity with Russia” without elaborating.
Later in a joint statement, alongside Vladimir Putin, he said: “We stand in solidarity with all those countries that want and strive for peace. We have intense collaboration in key international forums such as the BRICS, the G20 and the United Nations, where we defend the sovereignty of states, respect for international law and the United Nations Charter.”
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As we reported earlier, US secretary of state Antony Blinken is to meet the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, next week, warning the crisis in Ukraine was a “moment of peril for the lives and safety of millions of people”.
The US state department said on Thursday night that Blinken had accepted an invitation to meet Lavrov provided there was no invasion of Ukraine. The move provides hope that diplomatic channels remained open even as US warnings of an imminent invasion grow louder.
“If they do invade in the coming days, it will make clear they were never serious about diplomacy,” said state department spokesperson Ned Price. Blinken said earlier on Thursday he had sent a letter to Lavrov proposing a meeting in Europe.
Read our full report below.
Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine have accused Kyiv government forces of shelling a village with artillery on Friday, the Interfax news agency is reporting.
Similar accounts emerged on Thursday in operations that western leaders described as “false flag” operations designed to give Russia an excuse to invade Ukraine. You can find further background on conflict in the region here.
Some more photos from the scene of a shelling in the city of Stanytsia Luhanska in eastern Ukraine have emerged.
According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) there were “multiple shelling incidents” on Thursday morning across the frontline in eastern Ukraine.
A nursery school in the Donbas region was hit by Russian-backed separatists as residents woke to find a hole blown through the wall.
The move has been described by leaders in the west as a “false-flag operation” aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian government, while Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accused the Russian side of “provocative shelling”.
A White House official has just confirmed earlier reports that US president Joe Biden will host a call on Friday with Nato allies to discuss the Ukraine crisis.
In a statement, the official said:
The President will speak with Transatlantic leaders on a phone call tomorrow afternoon about Russia’s buildup of military troops on the border of Ukraine and our continued efforts to pursue deterrence and diplomacy.”
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Russia is on the brink of an “all-out conflict” in Ukraine, according to Australia’s defence minister.
Peter Dutton told Australian broadcaster, the Nine Network, on Friday:
It’s tragic and we’ll see terrible scenes unfolding.
You would expect that President Putin, who obviously can’t be taken at his word, is manufacturing some sort of trigger, or is in the process of executing the final stages of his plan to go into Ukraine.”
Dutton said while European leaders have attempted to prevent a conflict in Ukraine, he believed Putin was intent on military action.
That really is going to result in the loss of innocent life.
We’ve seen it before in eastern Europe, we don’t want it repeated but we live in a very uncertain world.
This is an issue Nato and Europe need to deal with and those European leaders really need to step up and put the pressure, even more pressure, on Russia to stop them.”
The defence minister said Australia has not been asked to provide troops to Ukraine, should there be any military retaliation.
US Senate approves resolution for Ukraine
The US Senate has voted in a rare bipartisan moment late on Thursday to send a show of support for an independent Ukraine, the Associated Press reports.
The vote comes shortly after Biden said the US has “every indication” of a potential Russian attack on Ukraine in a matter of days.
The resolution from the senators does not carry the force of law but puts the US legislative body on record supporting Ukraine and condemning Russian aggression.
The vote was unanimous, without objection or the formal roll call, according to the Associated Press.
Republican senator Rob Portman, in introducing the measure with Democratic counterpart Jeanne Shaheen among others, said:
This Congress is united in its support of Ukrainian independence and sovereignty.”
Ukraine has strong allies in the Senate, where there is broad support for sanctions on Russia as a powerful foreign policy tool to be used if Vladimir Putin furthers his aggression toward Ukraine.
Senators held back on legislation sanctioning Russia, saying the White House can impose sanctions on its own, regardless of congressional action.
“It is not a question of if but how we will respond to Putin,” said Shaheen in a statement.
Blinken to meet Russia’s foreign minister Lavrov next week
US secretary of state Antony Blinken will meet Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, next week “provided there is no further Russian invasion of Ukraine,” US state department spokesperson Ned Price has annoucened.
In a statement, Price said:
The Russians have responded with proposed dates for late next week, which we are accepting, provided there is no further Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If they do invade in the coming days, it will make clear they were never serious about diplomacy. We will continue to coordinate with our Allies and partners and push for further engagements with Russia through the NATO-Russia Council and OSCE.”
The Russians have responded with proposed dates for late next week, which we are accepting, provided there is no further Russian invasion of Ukraine. If they do invade in the coming days, it will make clear they were never serious about diplomacy.
— Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) February 18, 2022
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Global leaders are preparing to meet in Germany for Friday’s Munich security conference to hold talks on the crisis in a bid to avert war in Ukraine.
In attendance will be the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken and vice-president, Kamala Harris, along with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) most developed nations are set to speak at length over the four-day conference, discussing efforts to get Russia to de-escalate and ways to strengthen European security.
The increasingly pointed warnings from Joe Biden and Antony Blinken, plus the shelling in separatist regions of Ukraine sent jitters through Asia’s markets as they opened on Friday. Gold also reached an eight-month high as investors looking for safety ahead of the weekend.
Here are the details from Reuters:
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, was down 0.3% in early trade. Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.4%. Korean shares and Australian shares each fell 1%.
On Wall Street overnight the Dow Jones’ 1.8% fall was its worst session of the year so far, the S&P 500 fell 2.1% and the Nasdaq dropped 2.9%. Gold shot to an eight-month high of $1,900 an ounce and held its gains.
“The market will be on high alert over the possibility of a Russian invasion next week once the Beijing Olympics are over,” analysts at ANZ Bank said in a note.
Overnight safe-haven currencies such as the Japanese yen and Swiss franc climbed to two-week highs on the dollar, with the yen edging a tad higher still in Asia to 114.84 per dollar.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken earlier told a United Nations security council meeting on Ukraine that the unfolding crisis represents a “moment of peril for the lives and safety of millions of people” as Russian continues to deny plans to invade Ukraine.
Blinken addressed those assembled, saying: “Our information indicates clearly that [Russian] forces, including ground troops, aircraft, ships, are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days.”
Watch the highlights of the speech in the video below.
US president Joe Biden will host a call on Friday about the Ukraine crisis with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Britain, the European Union, and Nato, the office of Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau has said, according to a Reuters report.
Connecticut senator Chris Murphy has put together his view of the situation in Ukraine. In it, he questions the extent to which Vladimir Putin is succeeding in his ambitions, and praises the united response of western leaders to the crisis.
Take a minute to watch this. It's tempting to view Putin as some world-dominating mastermind. But that's not what's happening here. At all. pic.twitter.com/3fvrkPCI4m
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 17, 2022
Mobile internet service has returned to Vodafone subscribers in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine after an earlier network disruption that lasted over an hour and had high impact near the border with Russia, network data from internet monitoring service NetBlocks has confirmed.
The cause of the outage has not yet been determined, with some uncorroborated sources claiming a technical issue, while others have attributed the disruption to alleged shelling in the region.
ℹ️ Update: Mobile internet service is returning to Vodafone subscribers in #Luhansk, eastern #Ukraine, after a network disruption that lasted over an hour and had high impact near the border with Russia.
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) February 17, 2022
📰 Report: https://t.co/d8QWF8m0Kz pic.twitter.com/A1oEXeiv4j
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Hello it’s Samantha Lock with with you as my colleague Nadeem Badshah signs off.
Shortly after addressing the UN security council meeting and predicting a Russian invasion “in the coming days”, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke with Poland’s foreign affairs minister Zbigniew Rau.
Blinked thanked the central European nation for their “close partnership to pursue diplomacy” in a tweet late on Thursday.
Good to speak again with Foreign Minister @RauZbigniew to continue our close partnership to pursue diplomacy to preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Poland is a stalwart @NATO Ally and invaluable partner and we support its leadership in @OSCE.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) February 17, 2022
The White House said US president Joe Biden and Italy’s prime minister Mario Draghi reaffirmed on a call on Thursday their commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and readiness to hit Russia with severe economic costs if it invades its neighbour, Reuters reports.
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A summary of today's developments
- Addressing the UN security council meeting, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Russia is preparing an invasion “in the coming days” and that there is no evidence it is pulling out any troops. He urged Russia to pull back from war and declare it has no plans to invade Ukraine.
- Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations after a flare-up of violence in the Donbas region that saw a kindergarten shelled, injuring three people.
- Monitors at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported “multiple shelling incidents” in eastern Ukraine, where government forces have faced Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.
- The Kremlin accused Ukraine of firing first, while Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called the shelling of the nursery school “a big provocation”.
- Western leaders accused Moscow of attempting to stage a pretext for war. The US president, Joe Biden, said he believed an attack would happen in “the next several days” and that a false-flag operation was underway. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, shared this assessment, saying the aim was to discredit Ukraine’s government. Meanwhile, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was concerned that Russia was “trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack against Ukraine”
- A prominent commander of Russian-backed separatists in a breakaway area in eastern Ukraine sought to rally his veteran troops on Thursday, heralding a potential intensifying of the region’s conflict, Reuters reports. Alexander Khodakovsky, a former political leader in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic who now oversees a military unit, said that “all who want to rejoin ranks should be ready.”
- A German army convoy of 130 soldiers and 60 vehicles reached Lithuania on Thursday, bringing almost half of planned reinforcements for the country’s German-led Nato battlegroup amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Diplomatic tensions were hardly eased as Moscow sent its response to US proposals on security: it warned it could take “military technical” measures, as it accused the west of ignoring its concerns. Russia again denied any intent to invade Ukraine.
- In another downturn for diplomacy, Russia expelled the US’s second most senior diplomat in Moscow, which the US state department described as “an escalatory step”.
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Further shelling of Stanytsia Luhanska was reported on Thursday night, but with no immediate reports of casualties.
In Stanytsia Luhanska tonight, another artillery attack struck a residential home and caused a fire to break out. Emergency service workers put it out. Local authorities say nobody wounded. Much of the town without power though. pic.twitter.com/p9lytxzopN
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) February 17, 2022
Nataliya Poshyvaylo-Towler, an Australian mother-of-two of Ukrainian descent, found out her son had tested positive for Covid-19.
They were preparing to fly last week from Ukraine to Melbourne, where they live, after receiving an advisory from Australian authorities that citizens should immediately leave Ukraine over fears a Russian invasion could be imminent.
To board a plane back, Nataliya needed to complete a declaration form and show a negative Covid-19 test.
“I’m looking at the email with results and there’s an email coming from DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) - ‘evacuate now’. And the result is positive,” Nataliya recalled in an interview with Reuters.
“My legs started shaking, I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
Nataliya and her son Michael had to miss the 9 February flight and remain in Poltava, a town 300 kilometres (185 miles) to the south-east of capital Kyiv.
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US officials held discussions with Saudi Arabia about a “collaborative approach” to managing potential market pressures stemming from a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.
“In Saudi Arabia, state department special envoy for energy affairs Amos Hochstein joined Brett McGurk (coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa) to discuss a collaborative approach to managing potential market pressures stemming from a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the White House said in a statement.
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Russia’s deputy prime minister Yury Borisov will arrive in Cuba on Thursday, after a stop in Venezuela, for a working visit in the midst of Moscow’s standoff with the West over Ukraine, Havana said.
Borisov will have “meetings with various Cuban authorities to study the functioning of bilateral collaboration in different areas,” a foreign ministry statement said, AFP reports. He previously visited Venezuela, another ally of Moscow in Latin America.
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A prominent commander of Russian-backed separatists in a breakaway area in eastern Ukraine sought to rally his veteran troops on Thursday, heralding a potential intensifying of the region’s conflict.
Alexander Khodakovsky, a former political leader in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic who now oversees a military unit, said that “all who want to rejoin ranks should be ready.”
“At previous meetings with veterans of the militia, the algorithm of actions was discussed, and the places of arrival were indicated. I will inform you of the date and time of the gathering by all available means,” Khodakovsky wrote on his Telegram account.
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A German army convoy of 130 soldiers and 60 vehicles reached Lithuania on Thursday, bringing almost half of planned reinforcements for the country’s German-led NATO battlegroup amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said he was assured by German Chancellor Olof Scholz in Brussels the German soldiers are authorised fight to defend Lithuania.
“The German army is on our territory to defend us, and if there’s a threat to Lithuania, they are really ready to do their duty,” Nauseda said.
The German reinforcement operation will continue until the end of the week, bolstering German forces in Lithuania by more than 350 soldiers and 100 vehicles, Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup commander Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Andrae said.
“We have proven that we are capable of bringing in forces at short notice from long distance,” he told Reuters.
US stocks dropped more than 1% on Thursday, with investors gravitating toward defensive sectors and safe havens such as bonds and gold as geopolitical tensions heightened between Washington and Russia over Ukraine.
The growth-oriented technology and communication services sectors were among the hardest hit, while financials also declined as US Treasury yields moved lower.
“Right now this is certainly the chief consideration and the one that has been causing this market to move really every day this week,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.
“The longer it festers, the less of an issue it becomes, assuming that nothing happens. Obviously if we get into ground combat battles or something, that is a whole different story.”
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Russia has amassed 45,000 soldiers in Belarus and their presence is threatening to Baltic states and Poland, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.
The joint Russian and Belarus military exercise near the Belarus border with Ukraine is scheduled to end on Sunday, Reuters reports.
“They amassed 45,000 troops, a lot of military equipment, air forces. And we do not hear very clearly articulated promises that this will be removed to Russian territory after the military exercise ends. This is one more way to keep the tension up”, said Nauseda in a video statement after an EU leaders meeting in Brussels.
“This creates more potential threats now and for Baltic States and Poland,” he added.
Britain believes that nearly half of Russian forces that have massed near Ukraine are now within 30 miles of the border, in contrast to statements from Moscow that its forces were being sent back to barracks.
Reinforcements from 14 battalions were in the process of arriving, officials added, while highlighting a pontoon bridge that had been briefly set up in Belarus in the past few days as an example of unusual military activity.
There is evidence, a defence source said, “of Russian forces leaving the deployment sites for staging areas closer to the border”. A couple of hours later, the US president Joe Biden warned that an attack could take place “in the next several days”.
Russia has repeatedly said it has no intention of invading Ukraine and on Tuesday announced a drawdown of troops from Crimea, accompanied by videos of tanks being loaded on to transport trains.
There is no certainty on what will happen in terms of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the coming days, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told Polish state broadcaster TVP , Reuters reports.
Russia delivered a letter to the U.S. ambassador accusing Washington of having ignored its security demands, which include promising never to allow Ukraine to join Nato, Reuters reports.
“In the absence of the readiness of the American side to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees of our security from the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to respond, including through the implementation of military-technical measures,” the document said.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington was evaluating the letter and that he had earlier sent a letter to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov proposing a meeting next week in Europe to try to resolve the crisis.
The US State Department said the ejection of deputy chief of mission Bart Gorman from the US embassy in Moscow was unprovoked and it was considering its response.
Russia said it had ordered the diplomat out in response to the U.S. expulsion of a senior official at the Russian embassy in Washington, who it said was forced to leave before a replacement could be found as part of a US “visa war”.
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The UK’s foreign secretary Liz Truss said: “The Duma’s request that Vladimir Putin recognises the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent shows flagrant disregard for Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements.
“If this request were accepted, it would represent a further attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, signal an end to the Minsk process and demonstrate a Russian decision to choose a path of confrontation over dialogue.
We urge Russia to end its pattern of destabilising behaviour against Ukraine and to implement the commitments it has freely signed up to, including the Minsk agreements.”
Estonia’s foreign minister, Eva-Maria Liimets, is in Washington today, and talked to the Guardian about her assessment of the situation, saying Russia’s “heavy military buildup is also a sign of readiness to attack its neighbours”.
Liimets also looked at the implications of a permanent Russian military presence in Belarus. She said Alexander Lukashenko had become reliant on Moscow since he overturned the presidential election 2020 in order to hold on to power.
Liimets said:
Unfortunately, Belarus has limited its choices by itself, due to the stolen elections in 2020. They have limited access, limited communication, with other neighbouring countries and with other countries in Europe and and also in the world.
If Russia keeps its troops in Belarus, Liimets said:
Then it changes the security environment in our region, and also changes the balance of power. And, of course, then NATO has to make another assessment of its security planning and defence planning and then increase the defence and deterrence posture of the eastern flank.
She pointed out that the alliance is due to adopt a new strategic outlook at this year’s summit in Madrid, with the heightened threat in mind. But so far she thought it had responded well to the crisis.
I think that Nato has behaved really, very decisively, and has showed its very united approach to understanding the threat. And so I think that NATO is really in good shape and the transatlantic bond is very strong.
Our political correspondent, Aubrey Allegretti, reports on the UK government’s decision to axe the “golden visa” scheme:
The “golden visa” system that allows wealthy foreign investors a fast track to live in the UK has been axed amid concern about applicants acquiring their wealth illegally and the growing strain on diplomatic relations with Russia.
The home secretary, Priti Patel, announced that the scheme would end with immediate effect to help to stop “corrupt elites who threaten our national security and push dirty money around our cities”.
Launched in 2008, the “tier 1 investor visa” programme allowed people with at least £2m in investment funds and a UK bank account to apply for residency rights, along with their family. The speed with which applicants were allowed to get indefinite leave to remain was hastened by how much money they planned to invest in the UK: £2m took five years, while £10m shortened the wait to just two.
The scheme had been under review for some time, and its opponents were planning to push for the visas to be suspended through an amendment to the nationality and borders bill in the House of Lords, due to be debated later this month.
According to the anti-corruption watchdog Spotlight, 6,312 golden visas – half the number of all those issued – had been reviewed for “possible national security risks”.
Russia’s military aggression towards Ukraine presents a clear threat to the rules-based international order and Nato will do its best to deter this, Canada’s defence minister, Anita Anand, said.
Speaking on a conference call with reporters from Brussels, Anand said:
Nato is a defensive alliance … we cannot and we will not stand idly by while a nation seeks to erode international norms that have kept us safe since the end of world war two.
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Russia said it had ordered the expulsion of US deputy chief of mission, Bart Gorman, from the country in response to the US expulsion of a senior official at the Russian embassy in Washington.
In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said:
The American diplomat was indeed ordered to leave Russia, but strictly in response to the unreasonable expulsion of the minister-counsellor of our embassy in Washington, despite his status as a leading official.
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The mother of a child whose nursery was struck by Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region of Ukraine said she “still can’t calm down”, Agence France-Presse reports.
The woman, who agreed to identify herself only as Natalia out of fear for her safety, said she and her husband rushed to the kindergarten in a panic the moment they heard about the strike.
She told the news agency:
I was very scared. The kindergarten has no bomb shelter. It only has thick walls. But they even managed to puncture those. I still can’t calm down.
Kindergarten worker Natalia Slesareva was thrown against a door by the shell blast that blew a hole in the wall of a two-storey building being used by 20 children and 18 staff.
She told AFP:
The children were eating breakfast when it hit. It hit the gym. After breakfast, the children had gym class.
So another 15 minutes, and everything could have been much, much worse.
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Boris Johnson has claimed the shelling of a nursery school in the Donbas region of Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists was a “false-flag operation” aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian government.
According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) there were “multiple shelling incidents” on Thursday morning across the frontline in eastern Ukraine.
Three people were injured in the attack in the city of Stanytsia Luhanska, which blew a hole through the wall of a nursery.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, accused the Russian side of “provocative shelling”.
Speaking on a visit to RAF Waddington, in Lincolnshire, the UK prime minister said: “Today, as I’m sure you’ve already picked up, a kindergarten was shelled in what we are taking to be – well, we know – was a false-flag operation designed to discredit the Ukrainians, designed to create a pretext, a spurious provocation for Russian action.
“We fear very much that that is the kind of thing we will see more of over the next few days.”
A false-flag incident is one in which its origin is disguised, usually in an attempt to provoke retaliation.
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The Kremlin accused US president Joe Biden of stoking tension by saying he expected Russia to invade Ukraine within days, RIA news agency reported.
Separately, Russia accused Ukraine of repeatedly violating a 2015 ceasefire agreement aimed at bringing peace to the breakaway Donbas region.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergey Vershinin, told the UN security council: “Ukraine stubbornly refuses to implement the provisions of the Minsk agreements.”
He accused Kiev of repeated attacks on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, causing “thousands of victims.
“Attempts to place the blame on Russia are futile and baseless” and aim at “shifting of the blame away from Ukraine,” Vershinin said.
He also rejected as “a baseless accusation” claims by the US and European allies that Moscow is seeking to fabricate a pretext to invade Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the website of Russia’s foreign ministry went back online after going down for a few hours. The Tass news agency cited the ministry as saying that the website had gone down due to technical issues, without elaborating.
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Before today’s UN security council session, the Russian mission circulated documents alleging Ukrainian forces “have been exterminating the civilian population of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk”.
About 14,000 people have been killed since fighting started in eastern Ukraine and Russia seized Crimea in 2014. Three thousand of the dead have been civilians, who have been killed on both sides of the front line, according to international monitors.
The Russian document focuses on casualties on the Moscow-backed rebel side of the line, but does not make claims of the number of dead, just saying “thousands of civilians were wounded or killed”, saying they were killed by Ukrainian government forces using “explosive weapons, small arms and light weapons”.
The Russian documents say that Russian investigators “obtained information about spontaneous unmarked mass graves that were arranged outside specially designated places out of necessity due to the ongoing hostilities”.
It seems that when Russia is talking about mass graves, it is talking about the hasty burial of dead where they fell by their own families and communities. It does not seem to be a claim that the alleged mass graves were dug by Ukrainian forces to disguise war crimes. Nor does it make claims of executions of civilians.
It does, however, make the claim that the civilian casualties from the fighting amount to a “genocide of the Russian-speaking population of Donbas”.
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The UK’s foreign minister, James Cleverly, has accused Russia of “patently failing to live up to the international commitments that it has made around military transparency”.
Speaking to the UN security council, Cleverly said the whole world can see “Russia has deployed the forces necessary to invade Ukraine and now has them readied for action”.
With regards to Russian rhetoric of a withdrawal, he said it is “all too clear that the opposition is in fact true and the Russian military build-up continues”.
Cleverly said:
Russia’s actions are clearly designed to intimidate, to threaten and to destabilise Ukraine. We know it, they know it, and the international community knows it.
If Russia is serious about a diplomatic resolution “then it needs to show up to the diplomatic meetings and commit to meaningful OSCE [Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe] talks”, seeing as they did not show up on Wednesday and “they do not intend to show up on Friday”.
The UK condemns the actions taken by the Russian Duma to propose the Russian president recognise the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent, Cleverly added.
Russia is using “increasing disinformation” to “fabricate a pretext” to invade Ukraine, he said.
We are seeing increasing disinformation about events in the Donbas that are straight out of the Kremlin playbook.
It is therefore clear that we are at a critical juncture to prevent further escalation.
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Russia will target specific groups of Ukrainians, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, continues.
He told the UN security council:
Conventional attacks are not all that Russia plans to inflict upon the people of Ukraine. We have information that indicates Russia will target specific groups of Ukrainians.
It is unclear exactly what the secretary of state is talking about here, but earlier unconfirmed versions of Russian war plans, in particular those published in the German Bild newspaper, suggest that potential Ukrainian resistance leaders would be rounded up and put in camps.
Blinken said:
We’ve been warning the Ukrainian government of all that is coming. And here today, we are laying it out in great detail with a hope that by sharing what we know with the world, we can influence Russia to abandon the path of war and choose a different path while there’s still time.
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US secretary of state Antony Blinken urged Russia to pull back from war and declare it has no plans to invade Ukraine.
If it seeks peace, Blinken told the UN security council:
The Russian government can announce today with no qualification of equivocation or deflection, that Russia will not invade Ukraine.
Updated
Blinken reiterated concerns that Russia is formulating a “false flag” operation or “manufactured provocation” that it will blame on Ukraine to give it a reason to invade.
He said:
The [Russian] government will issue proclamations declaring that Russia must respond to defend Russian citizens or ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
Next, the attack is planned to begin. Russian missiles and bombs will drop across Ukraine. Communications will be jammed. Cyber-attacks will shut down key Ukrainian institutions.
After that, Russian tanks and soldiers will advance on key targets that have already been identified and mapped out in detailed plans. We believe these targets include Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million people.”
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has been speaking to the UN security council, having made a last-minute change of plan to go there in person.
Blinken said:
Our information indicates clearly that [Russian] forces, including ground troops, aircraft ships, are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days.
He went on to say that the US does not know precisely how things will play out but that a Russian attack could begin with a manufactured pretext.
He said:
First, Russia plans to manufacture a pretext for its attack. This could be a violent event that Russia will blame on Ukraine or an outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government.
We don’t know exactly the form it will take. It could be a fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia. The invented discovery of the mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake – even a real – attack using chemical weapons.
Blinken continued:
Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing, or a genocide, making a mockery of a concept that we in this chamber do not take lightly.
Updated
Addressing the UN security council meeting, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has reiterated concerns of a Russian attack on Ukraine that will begin with a manufactured pretext.
He says it could be a fabricated terrorist bombing in Russia, the discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake – or real – chemical weapons attack.
Updated
Russia invasion in ‘coming days’, says Blinken
Addressing the UN security council meeting, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Russia is preparing an invasion “in the coming days” and that there is no evidence it is pulling out any troops.
Blinken said:
Russia has amassed more than 150,000 troops around Ukraine’s borders.
Diplomacy is “the only responsible way” to resolve the Ukraine crisis, he said, adding that he has sent a letter to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, proposing a meeting in person next week.
Updated
Summary
On a day when tensions in eastern Ukraine have escalated sharply, here is a summary of the main events so far:
- Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations after a flare-up of violence in the Donbas region that saw a kindergarten shelled, injuring three people.
- Monitors at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported “multiple shelling incidents” in eastern Ukraine, where government forces have faced Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.
- The Kremlin accused Ukraine of firing first, while Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called the shelling of the nursery school “a big provocation”.
- Western leaders accused Moscow of attempting to stage a pretext for war. The US president, Joe Biden, said he believed an attack would happen in “the next several days” and that a false-flag operation was underway. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, shared this assessment, saying the aim was to discredit Ukraine’s government. Meanwhile, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was concerned that Russia was “trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack against Ukraine”
- Diplomatic tensions were hardly eased as Moscow sent its response to US proposals on security: it warned it could take “military technical” measures, as it accused the west of ignoring its concerns. Russia again denied any intent to invade Ukraine.
- In another downturn for diplomacy, Russia expelled the US’s second most senior diplomat in Moscow, which the US state department described as “an escalatory step”.
That’s all from me, Jennifer Rankin, as I hand over to Léonie Chao-Fong.
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Yaşar Halit Çevik, the chief monitor of the OSCE special monitoring mission, has said that there were 500 explosions overnight along the front line, mostly in the Luhansk oblast. “It’s critically important to deescalate immediately to avoid further aggravation of the situation,” Çevik said.
The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergey Vershinin, will address the UN security council in a few minutes, while the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is on the way from the airport, writes the Guardian’s Julian Borger.
Last night the Russian mission circulated documents alleging atrocities committed in eastern Ukraine by Ukrainian forces. Western diplomats have declared them false, and noted that the monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have made no mention of the alleged atrocities. Details of the allegations are not yet clear, but presumably Vershinin will spell them out.
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The state department has confirmed the expulsion of the US deputy chief of mission (DCM) to Moscow, Bart Gorman.
A state department spokesperson said:
Russia’s action against our DCM was unprovoked and we consider this an escalatory step and are considering our response.
DCM Gorman’s tour had not ended; he had a valid visa, and he had been in Russia less than three years.
We call on Russia to end its baseless expulsions of US diplomats and staff and to work productively to rebuild our missions.
Now more than ever, it is critical that our countries have the necessary diplomatic personnel in place to facilitate communication between our governments. We note that Russia’s actions have led to the US mission to Russia being staffed at levels well below the Russian mission to the United States.
Western intelligence believes that Russia is continuing to build up forces near Ukraine, despite Moscow’s claims of a return to barracks for some forces, writes the Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh.
Western officials believe Russia is at the point where nearly half of the combat forces “are now within 50km of the border of Ukraine”.
Some of the 14 Russian battalion tactical groups that were seen heading towards Ukraine have now arrived in the region, adding to a force of 100 battalions. Officials were reluctant to turn that into troop numbers but other estimates have suggested the massed Russian force is around 150,000.
There is evidence, officials believe, “of Russian forces leaving the deployment sites for staging areas closer to the border” and the “continued movement of Russian ground equipment in Belarus”, where Moscow is holding joint military exercises with its neighbour to the north of Ukraine.
Firm evidence of Russian forward deployments is limited, however. Western officials pointed to the recent construction of a pontoon bridge across the Pripet river during the Allied Resolve exercises 8km from Ukraine’s border in an area in the exclusion zone around the site of the former Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
But, according to Tom Bullock, a defence intelligence specialist at Jane’s, as of Wednesday the bridge had been taken down again.
neat pics, but for the time being I'd say was just a drill, Sentinel imagery from today indicates the bridge has been taken down. Img 2 is a PMP bridge from another location & time on Sentinel for comparison https://t.co/jNWuVtdWhJ pic.twitter.com/AX8UKnXUhj
— tom (@tom_bullock_) February 16, 2022
Western officials said its construction was nevertheless noteworthy: “This activity is highly unusual and inconsistent with any past exercise”.
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The UN security council session on Ukraine is underway, writes the Guardian’s world affairs editor Julian Borger.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, made a last-minute decision to address the session. Ironically, Russian is currently the president of the council and has some say on how the meeting will be held. The UN under-secretary general for political and peacebuilding affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, has told the meetings about reports of new ceasefire violations at the contact line in Luhansk and Donetsk and said “these violations must not be allowed to escalate further”.
I just arrived in New York City, where I will address the @UN Security Council regarding Russia's threat to peace and security. We seek to resolve this crisis diplomatically but are prepared to impose severe measures should Russia further invade Ukraine.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) February 17, 2022
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Here are some images of the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, meeting her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Kyiv earlier on Thursday.
The two are pictured laying flowers at a memorial to the Holodomor, the famine instigated by Stalin that killed millions of Ukrainians.
It is clear that Truss had a warmer reaction compared with her visit to Moscow a week earlier, when Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov described their meeting as like a conversation of “the mute with the deaf”.
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Biden thinks Russian attack will happen in 'next days'
Joe Biden has said that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent and that he believes a false-flag operation was under way that Moscow would use to justify an invasion, agencies in Washington report.
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House, AFP reports him as saying:
Every indication we have is that they’re prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine. My sense is it will happen in the next several days.
According to Reuters, he described the threat as “very high”. He said Russia had not moved back its forces from the Ukrainian border and that the US had reason to believe Russia was engaged in a false-flag operation that Moscow would use to justify an invasion.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, is due to speak at the UN security council later on Thursday.
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Liz Truss has urged the Kremlin “to deescalate and choose diplomacy”.
Russia must think again. Despite their claims Russia’s military buildup shows no signs of slowing.
The UK foreign secretary repeated warnings of sanctions:
We are ready with our allies to impose severe costs on Russia. There would be a severe economic cost through an unprecedented package of economic sanctions.
When discussing sanctions, she refers to the US, but does not mention the European Union.
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The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has vowed the UK’s “steadfast support for Ukraine” and said she admires the country’s fortitude in the face of Russian aggression.
She has just started speaking at a press conference in Kyiv with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.
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Russia expels senior US diplomat
Russia has expelled the deputy US ambassador to Moscow, Bartle Gorman, in what the US embassy has called an “escalatory step”, the Guardian’s Andrew Roth reports.
According to Russian media, Gorman has been ordered to leave the country as part of an ongoing dispute between Russia and the US over embassy staffing levels. The US is considering a retaliatory response. The decision comes at a moment of extraordinary tension, as the US has said a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be “imminent” and has threatened Moscow with sanctions if it launches an attack.
An embassy spokesman told Russian media:
We can confirm that Russia has expelled [the] US deputy chief of mission to Russia, Bart Gorman.
DCM Gorman was the second-most senior official at US embassy Moscow after the ambassador and a key member of the embassy’s senior leadership team.
Russia is expelling US deputy chief of mission Bartle Gorman at moment of extraordinary tension. Appears to be retaliation for US requirement that Russian diplomats who have been in US for longer than 3 years leave the country.
— Andrew Roth (@Andrew__Roth) February 17, 2022
The US has recently imposed a rule that requires Russian diplomats who have spent longer than three years in the US to leave the country. Russia has called the rule discriminatory and had promised to retaliate.
The decision was announced on Thursday as Russia also provided a written response to the US ambassador, John Sullivan, regarding Moscow’s demands for “security guarantees”. It is not clear if the decision was delivered during Sullivan’s visit to the foreign ministry.
Gorman is a career member of the foreign service and is “responsible for managing key aspects of the US–Russia relationship,” according to the embassy website. He previously served as he head of the diplomatic security service’s office of intelligence and threat analysis, as well as a senior regional security officer in postings including Moscow and Baghdad. He has a Ph.D in Slavic literatures and languages from the University of Southern California.
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Russia threatens 'military technical' response, but insists no plans for invasion - newspaper
Russia has accused the US of ignoring its core demands on security and threatened “a military-technical” response in a letter to Washington issued on Thursday.
The letter has not been published, but Elena Chernenko of the Russian newspaper Kommersant has seen the 10-page document and has a full breakdown.
This is a significant paragraph from the Russian response, cited in her report.
In the absence of the readiness of the American side to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees of our security from the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to react, including by implementing measures of a military-technical character.
The Russian government restates it has no plans to invade Ukraine and describes US warnings of such an attack as “an attempt to put pressure and devalue Russia’s proposals for security guarantees”.
The US did not give a “constructive answer” to the “basic elements” of Russia’s proposals, namely a veto on Ukraine and Georgia’s Nato membership and removing troops from the eastern flanks of the alliance, the document states.
The Kommersant report is summed up by the FT’s Moscow bureau chief, Max Seddon.
Russia has sent its response to the US on its draft security proposals, per @ElenaChernenko.
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 17, 2022
It says the US has ignored its core demands and vows a "military-technical response" – but insists that won't include any invasion of Ukraine.https://t.co/uTq6wj70RD
Here is his analysis:
This letter actually seems even more hardline than the already far-reaching demands Russia originally made in December.
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 17, 2022
Moscow hasn't given any ground, but has made even more specific demands and threats while completely rejecting all US proposals unless those are met.
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US has received Moscow's reply on security proposals
The US has received Russia’s response to American and Nato proposals about Ukraine and European security, Associated Press reports.
The Kremlin’s response was given to the US ambassador in Moscow, John Sullivan, the agency says, citing an unnamed official. No details about the letter have been released.
It is the latest volley in the diplomatic ping pong, since the US and Nato wrote to Moscow on 26 January outlining proposals on European defence, in response to the Kremlin’s demands for security guarantees the previous month.
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Boris Johnson says kindergarten attack in Donbas is false flag operation
Boris Johnson has described an attack on a kindergarten in eastern Ukraine as a “false-flag operation designed to discredit the Ukrainians”, PA Media reports.
“We fear very much that that is a thing we will see more of over the next few days,” he said.
The comments from the UK prime minister are more direct, but in tune with other western political leaders. Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, said he feared Russia was trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack, while the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has spoken of “a lot of disinformation” from Russia.
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Western security officials have been monitoring the shelling in Donbas closely, saying it was “the sort of provocation that has the potential to escalate”, while also stressing that exchanges of fire across the line of control in eastern Ukraine were not uncommon.
An official said there was “more concern with what is happening now” than with any possible pretext for an invasion by Russia that had been set out previously, so-called false-flag operations in which a faked incident would be used to justify an attack on Ukraine.
Nevertheless, similar levels of hostilities have been seen previously and it was not uncommon for issues to “flash up and go away”. One western official concluded: “I’m not saying this is a pretext, but I didn’t say it wasn’t a pretext.”
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EU concerned about Russian "disinformation" in Donbas
The European Union’s foreign policy chief has voiced alarm about heavy bombing in eastern Ukraine and said a “lot of disinformation” was coming from Russian sources.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, who recently visited the front line, was asked about the situation in eastern Ukraine.
We are very much concerned, very much worried … about increasing fighting and heavy shelling … and also we notice a lot of disinformation from Russian sides in order to create an atmosphere of alleged attacks against Russian people in this part of Ukraine.
Borrell, who attended the Nato defence meeting earlier on Thursday, was in tune with comments from the alliance’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, who said he feared Russia was “trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack against Ukraine”.
The EU high representative for foreign policy said he was ready to present a “very tough package” of sanctions against Russia “when the moment comes”.
Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, said the EU would concentrate all its efforts on the diplomatic process, but had already prepared a full package of sanctions.
With the technical support of the commission we have a very tough package prepared … If there is an aggression I will immediately call the foreign affairs council [of EU ministers] to propose the package of sanctions and I am sure that even if unanimity is required the council will approve that.
He did not specify what Russian actions could trigger EU sanctions, saying: “When the moment comes we will act decisively.”
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US claims Russia 'stocking up' on blood supplies in preparation for combat
The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has alleged Russia is moving troops closer to Ukraine’s borders and stocking up on blood supplies in anticipation of casualties on the battlefield.
“I was a soldier myself not that long ago. I know first hand that you don’t do these sorts of things for no reason,” said Austin, a retired army general. “And you certainly don’t do them if you’re getting ready to pack up and go home.
“We see them fly in more combat and support aircraft. We see them sharpen their readiness in the Black Sea,” Austin said at Nato headquarters in Brussels. “We even see them stocking up their blood supplies.”
Moscow denies it is planning to invade and says it is pulling back some troops.
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Shelling is a 'big provocation', says Ukraine president
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has tweeted about the shelling of the kindergarten.
He called it a “big provocation”.
The shelling of a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska by pro-Russian forces is a big provocation. It's important that diplomats & the @OSCE remain in 🇺🇦, their monitoring activities are an additional deterrent. We need an effective mechanism for recording all ceasefire violations.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 17, 2022
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Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden, has claimed the heavy artillery used this morning in eastern Ukraine is orchestrated by Moscow.
“When heavy artillery is used it’s as a rule under direct [Russian] command rather something by local hotheads,” tweeted Bildt, who is now co-chair at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
When heavy artillery is used it’s as a rule under direct 🇷🇺 command rather something by local hotheads. https://t.co/DsyBgGjESk
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) February 17, 2022
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said Russia was “seriously concerned” about the reports of escalation.
Russia’s military build-up is a sign of the “new normal for European security”, the Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said.
What we are seeing now is a new normal for European security, where Russia contests fundamental principles for European security and where they are willing to use force as they have done in Ukraine and Georgia.
Speaking after a meeting of Nato defence ministers with their counterparts in Ukraine and Georgia, Stoltenberg repeated his warnings about the Russia’s military build-up, while calling on Russia to look for a diplomatic solution, when asked about the situation by Fox News.
They have enough troops, enough capabilities to launch a full fledged invasion of Ukraine with very little or no warning time and that is what makes the situation so dangerous.
But it remains to be seen what they actually do … To have so many combat troops around Ukraine, it’s not a normal exercise.
It’s never too late to de-escalate, it’s never too late to find a political solution.
Nato had asked its military commanders to advise on next steps for a longer-term presence in Romania and the south-eastern flank of the alliance, he said.
And these are the main lines from the press conference.
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Nato is still waiting for a response from Russia on security proposals the military alliance sent in January, secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has said.
At a press conference in Brussels he was asked by Deutsche Welle whether he expected Russia’s response on Thursday, after Moscow promised to send its answer to Washington later in the day.
Stoltenberg did not answer the question directly, but reiterated that he saw “room for common ground to find solutions that will improve security for all of us”, citing arms control.
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Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has said it is considering battlegroups in Romania and the south east of the alliance.
“Nato has to respond when we see aggressive actions by Russia,” he said while urging Moscow to enter a dialogue with the west.
In response to a question from the BBC, he also defended the alliance’s approach of going public with its intelligence about Russia’s intentions.
All of this we do to try to prevent an attack on Ukraine. The fact that we are describing risk doesn’t believe we think it would happen with 100% certainty.
Nato concerned Russia trying to stage pretext for Ukraine attack
Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance is concerned that Russia is “trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack against Ukraine”.
He was asked by the Wall Street Journal about the Kremlin’s comments blaming Kyiv for shelling in the Donbas.
Stoltenberg said:
We are concerned that Russia is trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack against Ukraine. There is still no clarity, no certainty about Russia’s intentions.
Russia has amassed the biggest force we have seen for decades, he said.
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Nato secretary-general repeats assertion that there has been 'no sizeable withdrawal' from Russia
Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has repeated that the alliance has seen “no sizeable withdrawal so far” from Russia.
We call on Russia to do what it says and withdraw its forces from the borders of Ukraine. This will be an important first step towards a peaceful political solution.
He is speaking now at a press conference after a meeting of Nato defence ministers with their counterparts in Ukraine and Georgia, two countries that aspire to join the Atlantic military alliance as a security guarantee against Russia.
Stoltenberg said Nato’s door remained open and there could be no return to big powers bullying others.
Earlier this week, he said that the military alliance was considering deploying new battle groups in eastern and central Europe, adding to forces already in the Baltic States and Poland.
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Ukraine has no intention of giving up its right to join Nato, its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford, he put the accent on Ukraine’s right to choose its own path, recalling that 15,000 people have died in the war with Russia.
It’s not about Nato, it’s about the future of the people.
It’s not about membership in Nato. If we are speaking about Nato, about the EU, about temporarily occupied territories, we are just speaking about our independence, that we are deciding what we want, that we are deciding what we will do in our future.
I just asked President Zelensky whether Ukraine would be ready to compromise its ambition of joining Nato, given the high tensions. He told me: Ukraine needs security guarantees. Nato is ours. Our guarantee of not losing our independence. pic.twitter.com/X3mYeNF84l
— Sarah Rainsford (@sarahrainsford) February 17, 2022
You can watch a clip of the BBC interview here.
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Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said the village of Stanytsia Luhanska has been shelled with heavy weapons and called on other countries to condemn the attack.
Ukrainian Stanytsia Luhanska village was shelled with heavy weapons from the occupied territory of the Donbas. Civilian infrastructure damaged. We call on all partners to swiftly condemn this severe violation of Minsk agreements by Russia amid an already tense security situation.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) February 17, 2022
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he had spoken to the European Council president, Charles Michel, about the “provocative shellings”.
Had a phone conversation with @eucopresident Charles Michel in Mariupol. Informed about the security situation and today's provocative shelling, in particular in Stanytsia Luhanska. Thanked for the initiative of the donors' conference in support of Ukraine. 🇪🇺🤝🇺🇦
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 17, 2022
Michel is chairing an emergency meeting of EU leaders on Ukraine. The union’s 27 leaders were meeting for a long-planned summit with 40 African heads of state and government to discuss bilateral relations. With tensions in Ukraine still at boiling point, an impromptu meeting was shoe-horned in.
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Moscow correspondent Oliver Carroll, who has reported from both sides of the frontline in eastern Ukraine, says three people were injured in the shelling of a kindergarten in the Donbas region.
He tweets a video showing a ruined playroom, posted by Illia Ponomarenko, defence reporter for the Kyiv Independent.
Have spoken with aid worker, who has confirmed number of injured now 3: one teacher, a laundry assistant and security guard. Children were in another room. https://t.co/LqLFDoiNEH
— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) February 17, 2022
Shelling from rebel territory 'looks like provocation', says Ukrainian government source
A senior Ukrainian government source has said shelling from rebel territory in the east of the country is “not typical” and “looks like a provocation”, Reuters reports.
Earlier on Thursday the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has been monitoring the Donbas conflict for years, reported “multiple incidents of shelling” in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have released pictures of a kindergarten they say was damaged by the shelling, while the Kremlin has accused Ukraine of firing first.
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The Kremlin said on Thursday it was deeply concerned with the flare-up in violence in eastern Ukraine and hoped that the west would use its influence on Kyiv to prevent further escalation, Reuters reports.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accused Kyiv of “terrible provocations” and accused Ukrainian forces of firing first.
Peskov said Moscow had long warned of the “excessive concentration of Ukrainian armed forces” in the immediate vicinity of the line of contact, according to the Ria Novosti agency. He said:
Now we see that these terrible provocations are taking place, we see reports from representatives of the self-proclaimed republics that on the line of contact there is an exchange of fire, that the first strike came from Ukraine. This is worrying information. We are continuing to observe.
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Moscow promises reply to western security proposals on Thursday
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has promised Moscow will send its reply to western proposals on European security to Washington later on Thursday.
Speaking at a press conference alongside his Italian counterpart, Luigi Di Maio, Lavrov said Russia’s response would be publicly available in “a few hours”.
It’s absolutely necessary that relevant civil society groups in our two countries know [what is in the response].
Russia is responding to the western papers on European security issued on 26 January, which followed Moscow’s sweeping demands last December that escalated the crisis. The Kremlin called for a veto on Ukraine’s Nato membership and rollback of the western military alliance in eastern Europe. Moscow has previously criticised Washington and Nato for not publishing their written replies.
Meanwhile, Di Maio told the press that talks with Lavrov and Ukrainian foreign minister, Dymtro Kuleba, convinced him that a diplomatic solution was possible.
According to the Italian press agency Ansa, Di Maio said:
Italy has always been in the front row for a diplomatic solution and we can count on Italy to reach a diplomatic solution.
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One remarkable aspect of the Ukraine crisis is how the US and the UK have been so open with their intelligence on Russia, hoping to rob Vladimir Putin of the element of surprise.
The Guardian’s Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh have written a fascinating piece on the story behind this strategy.
There have been regular briefings in Washington and London – sometimes from national security officials who do not often talk to the press – going into detail about potential Russian military tactics, regime change plots, and false-flag operations Moscow is allegedly planning to provide a pretext for invasion.
Derek Chollet, the state department counsellor, said on Wednesday that the US and its allies wanted to warn of Russia possibly carrying out such operations in Ukraine “in order to hinder their ability to do so”.
“We are trying to be as forthcoming as possible, to say that’s their play and what could be coming,” Chollet said.
In doing so, the US and UK are trying to beat Russia at what has largely been Moscow’s game in recent years – or at least to provide better opposition.
“I think it’s the west getting a little more savvy on using intelligence in an actionable way,” John Sipher, a veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service, said. “It’s what we used to call – when the Russians did it – information warfare, and it’s something we’ve never got very good at.
You can read their full article here: US and UK trying to fend off Russian invasion by making intelligence public
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Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said the situation is “escalating” in the Donbas region and referred to the “huge strike potential of Ukrainian forces”.
He has been speaking in Moscow and his remarks are being summarised on the Twitter feed of the independent radio station Echo Moskvi.
Peskov also said Putin had not yet answered the Russian Duma about recognition of the so-called “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine. On Tuesday the Duma called on the Russian president to recognise them as independent. Such a move would destroy any hope of peace via the Minsk accords, western leaders have said.
Peskov also accused Nato of conducting “undisguised information aggression against Russia”. And he said the Russian foreign ministry was bringing to the west its reply on “the problems of security guarantees”.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said this week that Moscow was yet to answer the west’s written proposals on security, which were delivered last month in response to the Kremlin’s earlier demands.
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Here are some images released by Ukrainian military officials of a kindergarten in eastern Ukraine that they say has been damaged by shelling.
The kindergarten is in Stanytsia Luhanska, a small town on the frontline of Ukraine’s war against Moscow-backed separatists. Nobody was hurt, according to the Ukrainian reports.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported “multiple shelling incidents along the line of contact in east Ukraine” earlier on Thursday, but is yet to release details.
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Nato is “deadly serious” about bolstering its eastern flank to counter Russian threats, the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said.
Speaking before talks in Brussels between Nato defence ministers and their counterparts from Ukraine and Georgia, Wallace said:
We are deadly serious in how we’re going to face the threat that is currently being posed to both Ukraine and potentially to our security.
This is not a joke or a light matter. This is a real challenge to the stability of Europe.
One of the ways we can make sure there is no overspill or escalation is to provide resilience to our partners at Nato and that’s what we’re all doing.
Nato has asked its military commanders to draw up plans to send more forces to its eastern members, amid persistent fears of a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Wallace repeated that Russia was continuing to increase its forces along Ukraine’s border, despite claims of troop withdrawals from Moscow.
We’ll take them at their word but we’re going to judge Russia by their actions and at the moment, the troop buildup continues.
Quotes from AFP.
And in case you missed it, here is an interesting profile of the British defence minister by the Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh. Wallace, touted as a future secretary general of Nato, had a slow rise through the Conservative party but is now the most popular member of the cabinet among Tory activists.
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Shelling has been heard in the area of Donetsk airport and Elenovka village in eastern Ukraine, a witness has told Reuters.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said earlier on Thursday that “multiple shelling incidents” had taken place along the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, where government forces have been facing Russian-backed separatists since the outbreak of conflict in 2014.
Ukraine’s military on Thursday said Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine had fired shells at a village in the Luhansk region, hitting a kindergarten. The military said no injuries were caused.
The Russian-backed separatists had earlier accused government forces of opening fire against them four times in the past 24 hours and said they were trying to establish if anyone had been hurt or killed.
France has stepped up calls for a new security framework in Europe to replace the current “nearly obsolete or irrelevant” arrangements on arms control and transparency about troop movements.
In an interview with the FT, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said an agreement was needed to ensure long-term stability on the continent, adding that Vladimir Putin had to choose whether “to make Russia a destabilising power” or “the partner, in a new security and stability order in Europe”.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, who met Putin last week, has called for an overhaul of Europe’s security arrangements, while the European Commission has promised to come up with proposals.
In the FT interview, Le Drian set out a three-phase approach to defusing the crisis: verified withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine’s borders; resumption of talks on the Minsk accords to end the fighting in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region; and a new European security framework.
He also said he did not believe Putin’s claims to be unaware of the actions of the Russian mercenary group Wagner in Mali. Wagner has been hired by the ruling military junta and is pushing out French troops deployed there since 2013 to fight Islamist insurgents.
Le Drian said:
I cannot understand how President Putin can be unaware of this situation since they are former Russian soldiers, transported by Russian planes and using Russian weapons.
Given the amount of intelligence available to President Putin and his closeness to the Wagner chief … one must conclude he knows. He says he doesn’t but I don’t believe him.
You can read the full interview here: France urges revamp of Europe’s security order in face of Russia threat
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Ryanair, one of the largest foreign airlines in Ukraine, has said it will continue to fly planes in and out of the country.
The chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said it was the company’s “duty and obligation … to support the people of Ukraine as long as there is no war or missiles flying there,” Reuters reports.
Speaking to a conference in Lisbon on Wednesday, he said:
It is important not to panic … People need to get home and people want to leave and fly abroad to the EU … airlines have to provide that service.
The statement is likely to be welcomed by Ukraine’s government, which has complained that warnings of war are damaging its economy and making it impossible to borrow on international financial markets.
Last week the Dutch airline KLM announced it was halting flights to Ukraine, after the Dutch government called on its citizens to leave the country as soon as possible.
Ryanair - one of 🇺🇦 Ukraine’s biggest foreign airlines - says it has a “duty” to keep flying in and out.
— James Waterhouse (@JamWaterhouse) February 17, 2022
Chief Exec Michael O’Leary: “It is our duty and obligation... to support the people of Ukraine as long as there is no war or missiles flying there,”
(Reuters)
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OSCE reports 'multiple shelling incidents' in eastern Ukraine
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has recorded “multiple shelling incidents along the line of contact in east Ukraine” in the early hours of Thursday, Reuters is reporting citing a diplomatic source.
Russian-backed separatists in the region have accused Ukraine of opening fire four times in the last 24 hours. The source of the shelling and the seriousness of the incidents remains unclear.
Shelling has occurred many times during the last eight years of conflict, but the latest reports only heighten tensions.
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The Russian army has said 10 military convoys with “large, heavy and dangerous loads” have left Crimea, the Interfax news agency has reported. Citing the press service of the Southern Military District, the Russian agency said the convoys had finished training exercises.
Western politicians and intelligence agencies are deeply sceptical about Russian troop withdrawal claims; Nato’s secretary general has said the military buildup continues.
Hello, this is Jennifer Rankin, taking over the liveblog from Samantha Lock. I’ll be bringing you the latest news on the Ukraine crisis, with EU leaders due to hold emergency talks in Brussels, while Nato defence ministers conclude their meeting.
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Summary of key events
Before I hand over to my colleague, Jennifer Rankin, here is a quick recap of all the key developments so far:
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Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine accused Kyiv government forces of using mortars to attack their territory, in violation of agreements aimed at ending the conflict.
- Ukraine has denied the accusations. A duty press officer of the Ukrainian Joint Forces Operation said its troops were fired upon but did not retaliate.
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Britain has finished its military training activities in Ukraine and the only remaining UK troops in the country are there to protect the ambassador, Britain’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, said on Thursday.
- The Conservative chair of the House of Commons defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood, says it is now too late to send Nato troops to defend Ukraine but allies could still impose a no-fly zone.
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Vladimir Putin could drag out the Ukraine crisis for months in an attempt to challenge western unity, the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.
- Britain’s defence intelligence chief made a series of rare public comments late on Wednesday, adding to the west’s scepticism that Russia is committed to de-escalating any conflict.
- Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has thanked Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, for his support.
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UK forces finish military training in Ukraine
Britain has finished its military training activities in Ukraine and the only remaining UK troops in the country are there to protect the ambassador, Britain’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, said on Thursday.
Britain had supplied defensive weapons and training personnel to Ukraine.
Heappey told the BBC early on Thursday morning:
Within Ukraine itself, there is a small force that remains for the purposes of protecting the ambassador and her team.
Beyond that, all of our training activity alongside the Ukrainians has been ceased and we’ve been very clear throughout that there will be no UK involvement in any conflict in Ukraine.”
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The Conservative chair of the House of Commons defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood, says it is now too late to send Nato troops to defend Ukraine but allies could still impose a no-fly zone.
“This is a serious moment and we’re being tested,” he told Sky News’s Kay Burley from Kyiv.
Ellwood added that Nato allies should stop “hiding behind” the fact that Ukraine is not a Nato member as an excuse not to send Nato troops to defend Ukrainian territory.
“If we blink, where could this take us?”
— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) February 17, 2022
Russia is smelling weakness and the West needs to do more now, says Defence Select Committee Chair @Tobias_Ellwood 👇#KayBurley BH pic.twitter.com/2WKDqdtOQd
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Ukraine’s national guard is urging citizens to “keep calm”:
Keep calm and trust NGU💙💛#uaразом #ngu #ukraine #мвс #українаєдина #україна #захистимоукраїну pic.twitter.com/muc7PjkKgm
— НГУ (@ng_ukraine) February 17, 2022
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Putin could drag out Ukraine crisis 'for months', Truss says
Vladimir Putin could drag out the Ukraine crisis for months in an attempt to challenge western unity, the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.
Truss wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper:
We must not be lulled into a false sense of security by Russia claiming that some troops are returning to their barracks, while in fact the Russian military build-up shows no signs of slowing.
There is currently no evidence the Russians are withdrawing from border regions near Ukraine.
We must have no illusions that Russia could drag this out much longer in a brazen ploy to spend weeks more - if not months - subverting Ukraine and challenging Western unity. This is a test of our mettle.”
Truss will visit Ukraine and Poland for talks with her ministerial counterparts before attending the Munich Security Conference with Nato foreign and defence ministers on Saturday.
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Britain’s defence intelligence chief made a series of rare public comments late on Wednesday, adding to the west’s scepticism that Russia is committed to de-escalating any conflict.
In case you missed it, Lt Gen Sir Jim Hockenhull said more Russian armoured vehicles, helicopters and a field hospital were spotted despite the Kremlin’s assertion it has withdrawn troops.
We have not seen evidence that Russia has withdrawn forces from Ukraine’s borders. Contrary to their claims, Russia continues to build up military capabilities near Ukraine.
This includes sightings of additional armoured vehicles, helicopters and a field hospital moving towards Ukraine’s borders. Russia has the military mass in place to conduct an invasion of Ukraine.”
US officials have described as “false” Russian claims that it is withdrawing troops. And Nato’s secretary general said on Wednesday that Russia was still building up its forces.
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Some more detail has emerged regarding the denial from Ukrainian government forces over accusations of having targeted separatist positions in the country’s east. Ukraine says its troops were fired upon but did not retaliate.
A duty press officer of the Ukrainian Joint Forces Operation told Reuters by telephone:
Despite the fact that our positions were fired on with prohibited weapons, including 122mm artillery, Ukrainian troops did not open fire in response.
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Authorities in Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv are urging residents not to panic or succumb to “Russian propaganda” or “psychological attacks”.
Officials in the city, a thriving technology hub just 40km from the Russian border, held an emergency meeting on Thursday morning local time, Interfax news agency reports.
We appeal to the residents of our region and all Ukrainians not to spread panic, rumours and Russian propaganda, not to succumb to information and psychological attacks and not to play the aggressor.
Our peace helps the government, diplomats and security forces to do their job to protect the state and Ukrainians.
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Ukraine denies targeting separatist territory in east
Ukraine is denying accusations made by Russian-backed separatists that its government forces conducted mortar attacks in the east of the country, Reuters reports.
We will have more as this story continues to develop.
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Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, may speak to Vladimir Putin as early as Thursday night, a government source in Tokyo said.
Arrangements were being made for the talks with the Russian president but a time had not yet been set.
Western nations warned on Wednesday that there is a growing Russian military presence at Ukraine’s borders, contradicting Moscow’s insistence of a pullback.
Kishida spoke to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Tuesday and said Japan is ready to extend at least $100m in emergency loans to the country.
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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has thanked Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, for his support.
“Let’s join forces to keep the peace!” Zelenskiy said in a post over Twitter on Thursday morning.
I appreciate the support of Great Britain and grateful to @BorisJohnson for the unity with 🇺🇦! This is very important for us, especially now! Let's join forces to preserve peace! 🇺🇦🤝🇬🇧 #StrongerTogether
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 17, 2022
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We have some more background on the accusations that Russian-backed separatists have made against Ukraine government forces of alleged mortar attacks.
It was not immediately clear how serious the incidents were and there was no immediate reaction from Ukraine or from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has been monitoring the situation in eastern Ukraine but has pulled out some of its monitors in recent days, Reuters reports.
Although such incidents have occurred many times over the last eight years, any escalation in conflict could fuel tensions between Russia and the west.
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UK's 'golden visas' to be scrapped, sources say
The so-called “golden visas” offering fast-track residency in the UK for wealthy foreign investors are expected to be scrapped by the British government amid concerns over links between Russia and the UK and against the backdrop of mounting tensions, the BBC is reporting.
A government source confirmed reports of an announcement due next week on tier 1 investor visas, which offer residency to those spending at least £2m, the broadcaster says.
The scheme, introduced in 2008 to encourage wealthy people from outside the EU to invest in the UK, has been under review for some time, after concerns it is open to abuse.
The Labour former minister Chris Bryant previously called for a full review of the scheme and accused the government of “giving out golden visas to dodgy Russian oligarchs” and said the system was used as a “backdoor loophole” to funnel dirty money into the UK.
The expected announcement to scrap the visa comes amid pressure on ministers to cut UK ties to Russia over the threat of invasion to Ukraine.
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Russian-backed rebels accuse Kyiv of attack, reports say
Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine have accused Kyiv government forces of using mortars to attack their territory, in violation of agreements aimed at ending the conflict, Reuters reports.
The agency cites a report published by the RIA news agency, claiming representatives of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic accusing Ukrainian forces of using mortars, grenade launchers and a machine gun on Thursday.
Representatives of Luhansk region in the Ukrainian-Russian ceasefire control group were quoted cited by Interfax news agency as saying:
Armed forces of Ukraine have rudely violated the ceasefire regime, using heavy weapons, which, according to the Minsk agreements, should be withdrawn.”
There has been no comment from Ukraine and no independent verification of the rebels’ claims.
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A more lighthearted story here from Guardian reporter Stephen Burgen on the ground in Barcelona, Spain.
When Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron faced each other at either end of an improbably long table last week, the image became a metaphor for the fraught negotiations over Ukraine.
Now the table stakes have been raised after furniture makers in Spain and Italy both claimed that they were commissioned by the Kremlin to make the four-metre-long table.
Read about the controversy here:
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Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you as we take a look at all the latest live coverage on the Ukraine crisis.
Let’s jump in with a summary of the key events overnight.
- Russia has deployed another 7,000 troops to the border with Ukraine, a US official has said, as the Biden administration dismissed reports that Russia is withdrawing forces as it has claimed over the last two days. Many of them arrived in their position in the past 24 hours, the official claimed.
- It came amid multiple other reports that appear to contradict Moscow’s claims of a “partial” drawdown of Russian forces, including from Britain’s defence intelligence chief who said more Russian armoured vehicles, helicopters and a field hospital had been spotted.
- Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Russia was continuing to send troops to what is now the biggest concentration of forces in Europe since the cold war. He said Nato was “prepared for the worst” but hoped for a diplomatic solution.
- The Russian defence ministry shared a video on Wednesday purportedly showing columns of military equipment and forces leaving the area that borders Ukraine.
- The British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said the UK was doubling the number of personnel in Estonia and sending additional equipment, including tanks and armoured fighting vehicles. Four additional UK Typhoon jets landed in Cyprus on Wednesday.
- The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will be attending the Munich security conference in Germany on Friday to discuss Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine. The vice-president, Kamala Harris, will also be there, along with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy,
- Zelenskiy toured the country on Wednesday to mark a newly declared national unity day as cyber-attacks on the Ukrainian defence ministry stretched into a second day. Ukrainians were asked to fly the national flag and sing the national anthem.
- The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, warned Russia that EU sanctions “can bite very hard” as she urged the Kremlin not to choose war. In a speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg, she said EU institutions and member states were working on a “robust and comprehensive package of potential sanctions” in cooperation with the US, UK and Canada.
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