(Moscow) An outbreak of violence between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists fueled Western concerns on Thursday of a Russian offensive against Ukraine, even if Moscow assures that its forces are returning to their barracks.
Posted at 6:22
Updated at 9:19 a.m.
The United States has again accused Russia of heading for “an imminent invasion” and claims to have seen no significant withdrawals among the more than 100,000 Russian troops deployed in the vicinity of Ukraine.
The British and Americans consider that Moscow could also prepare a pretext in the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine to justify its intervention.
Exchanges of fire in this region, the Donbass, therefore revive the fear of an escalation, after a relative lull in recent weeks.
The Ukrainian army on Thursday denounced an attack on Stanitsa Luganska which deprived half of this locality of electricity and left a shell hole in the wall of a school, bricks strewn a room in the middle of children’s toys .
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced a “provocation”.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson blamed Russia. “A nursery school was bombed in what we consider to be, what we know to be an operation […] designed to discredit Ukrainians, designed to create a pretext, a spurious provocation justifying Russian action,” he told reporters during a visit to a military base.
Mutual accusations
The separatists of Donetsk and Lugansk in return accused their adversaries of having multiplied the shootings with heavy weapons.
Lugansk army chief Ian Lechchenko said Ukrainian forces were trying to “push the conflict towards an escalation”.
Neither side reported fatalities. Kiev announced seven wounded: 2 soldiers and 5 civilians.
The Kremlin expressed “deep concern”, deeming the situation “extremely dangerous” due to the “extreme concentration of Ukrainian forces”.
The head of British diplomacy Liz Truss, visiting Kiev, in return accused Moscow of seeking to provoke “pretexts for an invasion”.
For its part, Russia announced new withdrawals of military units from the outskirts of Ukraine, broadcasting images of trains loaded with equipment and announcing the return of units to barracks in the Russian Caucasus and the Nizhny region. Novgorod, regions a good distance from the border.
Americans and British, however, accused Moscow of staging and reinforcing its troops.
“We have seen an increase in troops over the last 48 hours, up to 7,000 (men). We have seen a bridge built from Belarus, to Ukraine or near Ukraine,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told a NATO meeting.
The Ukrainian president said he had not seen a reduction in troops on Ukraine’s borders, but “small rotations”.
The United States closed its embassy in Kiev this week, despite calls from Ukrainian authorities not to panic.
Large-scale Russian-Belarusian military exercises are due to end on February 20 in Belarus, in northern Ukraine. Minsk and Moscow have assured that at their conclusion the Russian forces involved will return to Russia.
western weapons
Washington’s accusations are worrying in Ukraine, as in the village of Dobrianka, on the border with Belarus. Some even see it as manipulation.
“The Ukrainians could start something, and it would be because of the Americans and the British who brought all these weapons here,” said Lidia Silina, 87, from her small wooden house.
Kiev has seen Western arms shipments rise amid fears of invasion, fueling Russian anger who in turn believe Kiev wants to mount an offensive against eastern separatists.
At the start of the week, the Kremlin and the White House nevertheless indicated their readiness for an in-depth dialogue on the European security architecture, which Russia is calling for a complete overhaul, considering that the expansion of NATO to its borders constitutes a existential threat.
The United States announced on Thursday that it received Russia’s written response to its proposals for negotiations on security in Europe.
This beginning of appeasement came to complete European diplomatic efforts, in particular the double shuttle of French and German leaders Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz between Moscow and Kiev.
Moscow says it wants to negotiate while deploring the rejection by the West of its main demands, namely the end of the policy of enlargement of the Atlantic Alliance and the withdrawal of NATO infrastructure from Eastern Europe.
Americans and Europeans have offered in exchange talks on subjects such as arms control, visits to sensitive installations or discussions on Russian security fears.
Moscow must send its written response to Washington on Thursday on this subject, said Thursday the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov.
Russia denies any bellicose intentions vis-à-vis Kiev, but in 2014 it already annexed Crimea. She is also the godfather of the separatists in eastern Ukraine.