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A leader of Russian-backed separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine announced the evacuation of residents of his breakaway region to Russia on Friday, heightening fears in the West that Moscow was planning to use an escalation in the long-running conflict as a pretext to invade Ukraine.
The move follows a spate of bombings in the region that has raised fresh global alarm, with tensions rising once again after the United States and its allies disputed Moscow's claims of troop withdrawals near Ukraine's border.
Moscow announced large-scale exercises of its nuclear forces from Saturday, which will be overseen by President Vladimir Putin and provide a timely reminder of the country's nuclear capability as Europe faces its worst security crisis since the Cold War. But the focus of the world's concern on Friday was eastern Ukraine.
Dennis Pusilin, head of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic," announced the evacuation in a video posted on social media, according to translations by the Associated Press and Reuters. He claimed without evidence that Kiev was planning its own military offensive in the region in the east of the country, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting government forces since 2014, news agencies reported.
He added that women, children and elderly people would be moved first, according to the AP and Reuters translation, and that Russia had prepared the necessary facilities to accommodate them. There was no indication that Kiev was planning such an attack and Ukraine says its forces have had to show restraint after an increase in ceasefire violations by Russian-backed separatists because they believe it is a ploy designed to provoke Ukraine into retaliation.
Dmitry Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister, tweeted that his government "categorically denies" what he called "Russian disinformation reports." He said, "Ukraine is not conducting or planning such actions in Donbass. We are fully committed to diplomatic resolution of the conflict only."
"As many as 190,000 troops have been concentrated by Russia on the border with Ukraine," US says
Meanwhile, the United States is noticing that Russian troops continue to move to areas on the border with Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said today.
"Although Russia has announced that its forces are returning to base, we haven't seen it yet. Indeed, we are seeing more forces entering that border area," Austin said after a meeting with his Polish counterpart Marius Blazak. "We also see them continuing to prepare," notably "getting closer to the border, deploying troops, and increasing their surveillance capabilities," Austin clarified.
Meanwhile, in the same context, US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Michael Carpenter said that the number of Russian troops on Ukraine's border is significantly higher (almost double) than what was known until recently. "We estimate that Russia has probably amassed 169,000-190,000 troops on the border with Ukraine compared to about 100,000 on 30 January. This is the most significant military mobilization in Europe since World War II," Carpenter noted.
Source: protothema.gr
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