IF HISTORY IS ANY GUIDE, A RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE IS IMMINENT....ALL THE HALLMARKS
Heavy artillery, tank and mortar exchanges pick up in eastern Ukraine wsj
Ann M. Simmons
Feb 18, 2022
The leaders of two Russian-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine urged civilians to evacuate to Russia immediately as shelling intensified along the front line, with Kyiv saying its troops have been issued orders to exercise restraint in responding to artillery fire so as to not give Moscow a pretext to invade.
Denis Pushilin, the head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, said in a televised address Friday that civilians in the Russian-controlled area should immediately move to Russia because Ukrainian forces were about to invade the region that has been under Moscow’s control since 2014. “A temporary departure will protect life and health for you and your loved ones,” he said.
The head of the nearby Luhansk People’s Republic issued similar instructions.
Ukraine says it has no plans to retake Russian-held parts of Donetsk and nearby Luhansk regions by force. Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia, which has massed more than 150,000 troops on Ukrainian borders, is looking for an excuse to launch military action against its neighbor.
Heavy artillery, tank and mortar exchanges picked up Friday morning all along the cease-fire line separating the Ukrainian-controlled two-thirds of Donetsk and Luhansk from Russian-held areas, according to accounts from both sides. Violence in the regions had increased dramatically Thursday, with shells hitting a kindergarten and a school in Ukrainian-controlled towns.
Ukrainian and Western officials say the Kremlin, which has issued Russian passports to residents of the Russian-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk and alleges that Kyiv is perpetrating a genocide there, is trying to goad the Ukrainian forces into hitting civilian targets. The same strategy was used in 2008, when Russian troops invaded the republic of Georgia, citing as an excuse the Georgian shelling of the capital of South Ossetia, a Moscow-controlled breakaway statelet.
“They may be trying to force our hand in negotiations or attempting to provoke response fire and use that as a pretext to start a full-scale invasion. There are several options here, and the South Ossetian option is very probable,” Serhii Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk region, said in an interview Friday. Ukrainian forces, he added, have been given orders to hold their fire as much as possible. “They shoot back only when there is a direct threat to life, when they are being hit in the direct proximity to their own position,” Mr. Haidai said.
The commander of Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Lt. Gen. Oleksandr Pavliuk, also said Russia is doing everything it can to provoke Ukraine into shelling civilian areas, so that it could back up its genocide allegations, according to a transcript published by the ministry of defense. Some 14,000 people have died in the Donbas conflict since Russia fomented a separatist uprising there in 2014, sending weapons and troops across the border.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday expressed alarm over the escalating situation. “What’s happening in the Donbas is very disturbing news, it causes a feeling of anxiety. [It’s] potentially very dangerous,” he told reporters
<<<Footage shows a kindergarten and a school in Kyiv-controlled towns of the Donbas region damaged by mortar shells, according to the Ukrainian army. Authorities in Russian-controlled areas said mortar attacks had also damaged several buildings in towns there. >>>
Mr. Pushilin, a Russian citizen and a member of the ruling United Russia party, said that he had secured an agreement of the Russian government to host Donetsk residents in the nearby Rostov region of Russia. Women, children and retired people will be the first to be evacuated, and offices, institutions and companies have been instructed to organize the departure of their staff, he said. The evacuation is beginning immediately, he said.
Russian-installed Donetsk authorities earlier Friday said that they had intercepted a Ukrainian infiltration team allegedly attempting to attack a chemical plant in the city of Horlivka. Ukrainian and Western officials have long warned of Russian-installed authorities creating a false-flag incident they could pin on Kyiv.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that he is “deeply concerned” that Russia isn’t embarked on the path of diplomacy and appears to be creating false provocations designed to spark a conflict with Ukraine.
“Everything we are seeing…is part of a scenario that is already in play of creating false provocations, of then having to respond to those provocations and then ultimately committing new aggression against Ukraine,” he said at the Munich Security Conference in a discussion with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
While skirmishes along the front lines in Donbas have occurred repeatedly since major combat ended in 2015, the upsurge in shelling that started on Thursday is “anomalous,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said. From the beginning of the year and until Feb. 16, Russian-backed forces fired 107 times on Ukrainian military positions along the cease-fire line, he said, and only 22 of these incidents involved heavy artillery, tanks, antitank missiles and other weapons prohibited under the cease-fire agreements.
On Thursday, there were 60 shelling incidents, out of which 43 used prohibited weapons, with 30 Ukrainian-held towns and villages across the front line getting hit, Mr. Reznikov said. There were 33 more incidents by 11 a.m. on Friday, according to the Ukrainian military. “Our task is not to do what the Russian Federation is pushing us to do,” Mr. Reznikov told a Parliament hearing Friday. “Our task is to respond, but to keep a cool head.”
He added that Kyiv still considers the probability of a full-fledged invasion as low. That contrasts with Western estimates of the likelihood of a Russian invasion. “My sense is this will happen within the next several days,” President Biden said Thursday.
Russian troops are moving closer to Ukraine’s border, dispersing along it, and increasing their logistical capacities, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters during a visit to Warsaw on Friday.
“We see more forces moving into that region, that border region,” he said.
Poland has been a close U.S. ally against Moscow, and is hosting 4,700 U.S. troops being rotated onto Polish territory in response to the Russian escalation around Ukraine. “We all do believe that through being decisive, and through the decisive policy of the free world, especially the United States, there will be no war,” Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said. “We do still hope and believe that there will be no conflict, due to the unity of the free world.”
Moscow denies that it intends to invade Ukraine but says that it’s duty-bound to protect Russians and Russian speakers in Donbas. It also says it can’t accept Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who toured the front line in Donbas on Wednesday and Thursday, was slated to fly Saturday to Munich for a series of meetings at the international security conference there, including with Vice President Kamala Harris. Russia isn’t attending this year.
The Donetsk People’s Republic said Ukrainian forces Friday shelled Russian-held areas using mortars and tanks near the town of Horlivka. The Luhansk People’s Republic also said its areas came under Ukrainian shelling. There were no reports of casualties.
“There has been an aggravation along the entire line,“ Lt. Col. Andrey Marochko of the pro-Russian forces in Luhansk told the Russian military’s Zvezda TV channel. ”Residents of Luhansk hear explosions even in the city center.”
Mobile-phone service stopped functioning for some subscribers in many Ukrainian-controlled parts of Luhansk and Donetsk on Thursday night. Ukrainian officials said Friday that operations of the local Vodafone affiliate were disrupted by Russian-backed saboteurs who destroyed network nodes. While connection was restored hours later, attempts to sabotage communications facilities of all the networks are likely to continue in coming days, they said.
—Drew Hinshaw and Laurence Norman contributed to this article. |
