KYIV | Ukraine on Tuesday called on the West for harsh reprisals against Russia, pending the extent of the military operation ordered by Vladimir Putin after the recognition of the independence of the separatists in eastern Ukraine by Moscow.
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During the night of Monday to Tuesday, Mr. Putin instructed his army to deploy in the separatist “republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk, a few hours after recognizing their independence, at the risk of aggravating the conflict in Ukraine which has claimed more than 14,000 lives since 2014.
No timetable or scale for this deployment has been announced, but Russia has more than 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders, an armada that could lead an invasion.
“Will there be Russian soldiers or not? I don’t know,” Eduard Basurin, a representative of the Donetsk army, told Russian television.
From the United States to the European Union via NATO, the Russian decision has been condemned. Moscow is also accused of choosing confrontation rather than dialogue.
Faced with the amputation of its territory, which adds to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine called on its Western allies on Tuesday for “severe sanctions” against Moscow.
“Ukrainian diplomacy is working intensively in foreign capitals for the imposition of severe sanctions,” according to a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
In Washington, Joe Biden issued an executive order on Monday prohibiting any new investment, exchange or financing by American persons to, from or in the separatist regions, a minimum package. The White House promised “new sanctions” for Tuesday.
The EU will also decide on Tuesday on reprisals, announced the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, calling for “act quickly”.
According to him, however, it is not at this stage a “large-scale invasion but Russian troops have entered Ukrainian territory”, in the Donbass.
Britain will announce on Tuesday “a first series” of economic sanctions which will “hit Russia very hard”, said its Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Moscow has so far brushed off Western criticism and threats of punitive measures.
The Russian Parliament must on Tuesday endorse the decision of the head of the Kremlin to deploy a force qualified as “peacekeeping” in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, and ratify two mutual aid agreements between Moscow and the secessionists, for a period of ten years.
“Shocked”
Another question will be what borders Russia recognizes for the separatist “republics”: the current front line or the boundaries of the much larger Kiev-defined administrative regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, which the separatists claim?
This vagueness feeds the fear of a major military escalation.
Already, in the streets of Kiev, the recognition by Moscow of the separatist regions is arousing fear of a runaway.
“I’m really in shock because I have a lot of family” in eastern Ukraine, 22-year-old Artem Ivaschenko, from Donetsk, told AFP. “I have lived in Kiev for eight years” and “this is the most terrifying news in eight years”, he adds.
The UN Security Council met urgently overnight from Monday to Tuesday and Western and Russian representatives clashed there.
“The next few hours and days will be critical. The risk of major conflict is real,” UN Deputy Secretary General Rosemary DiCarlo said at the meeting.
China, an ally of Russia, called on the actors of the crisis to “show restraint”.
semblance of calm
On Monday, Mr. Putin strongly criticized the West and called on Ukraine to cease its “military operations” or to assume the continuation of “bloodshed”, statements widely understood as a threat.
Moscow also assured Tuesday to be “ready” for negotiations, while the heads of Russian and American diplomacy had planned, before the recognition of Mr. Putin on Monday, to see each other Thursday in Geneva.
On the Ukrainian front line, where the exchange of fire had exploded in recent days, the situation seemed calmer in the morning.
Kiev has noted since midnight only three violations of the ceasefire which did not cause any casualties. The day before, two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 18 wounded, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
For their part, the separatist authorities in the Donetsk region said that three civilians had been killed in a bomb explosion on Tuesday, accusing Kiev.
Ukraine regularly denies any attack on separatist areas, accusing them and Moscow of spreading false information to serve as a pretext for armed intervention by Russia.
The situation nevertheless remained volatile and, a sign of market concern, the Moscow Stock Exchange opened sharply lower on Tuesday, before recovering somewhat at the end of the morning.