MOSCOW (AP) — A long-apprehensive Russian invasion of Ukraine appears imminent, if not already underway, with Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering troops into separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.
A vaguely worded decree signed by Putin did not say whether troops were moving, and gave the order as an attempt to "keep the peace". But it appeared to dash thin remaining hopes of averting a major conflict in Europe that could lead to mass casualties, energy shortages on the continent, and worldwide economic chaos.
Putin's directive comes hours after he recognized separatist territories in a combative, fact-bending discourse on European history. The move paved the way for them to provide military aid, antagonize Western leaders who see it as a violation of the world order, and call on the U.S. to respond. and set off a frenzied scuffle by the others.
Underscoring the urgency, the UN Security Council held a rare nightly emergency meeting on Monday at the request of Ukraine, the US and other countries. Under Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo began the session with a warning that "the risk of a major conflict is real and needs to be prevented at all costs."
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to stay calm, telling the country: “We are not afraid of anyone or anything. We don't owe anyone anything. And we won't give anything to anyone." The State Department said its foreign minister, Dimitro Culeba, would be in Washington on Tuesday to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The White House issued an executive order restricting US investment and trade in separatist areas, and additional measures - potential sanctions - were to be announced on Tuesday. According to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, the sanctions are independent of whatever Washington has prepared in the event of a Russian invasion.
Meanwhile, the State Department said US personnel in Lviv, in Ukraine's far west, would spend the night in Poland but would return to Ukraine to continue their diplomatic work and emergency consular services. It again urged any US citizen in Ukraine to leave immediately.
The developments came during a spike in clashes in eastern regions that Western powers believed Russia could use as an excuse to attack Western-looking democracy that pulled Moscow back into its orbit. efforts have been rejected.
Putin justified his decision in a far-reaching, pre-recorded speech, blaming NATO for the current crisis and calling on the U.S. the coalition led by the U.S. as a potential threat to Russia. Over a century of history, he portrayed today's Ukraine as a modern construction inextricably linked to Russia. He alleged that Ukraine had inherited Russia's historical lands and was used by the West to contain Russia after the Soviet collapse.
"I consider it necessary to take a long-pending decision: to immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic," Putin said.
He later signed matching decrees recognizing the independence of the two regions, eight years after fighting broke out between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces, and asking lawmakers to approve measures paving the way for military support. called upon.
So far, Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of supporting the separatists with weapons and troops, but Moscow has denied it, saying there were Russian volunteers fighting there.
At the last meeting of Putin's Security Council, a stream of top officials argued for recognizing the regions' independence. One slipped and said he favors including them as part of Russia - but Putin quickly corrected that.
Accepting the independence of separatist regions is likely to be popular in Russia, where many share Putin's worldview. Russian state media released photos of people setting off fireworks, waving large Russian flags and playing Russia's national anthem in Donetsk.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians in Kiev were furious at the move.
“Why should Russia recognize (the areas occupied by the rebels)? If neighbors come to you and say, 'This room will be ours', will you care about their opinion or not? This is your flat, and it will always be your flat, ”said Maria Levchishchyna, 48, a painter in the Ukrainian capital. "Let them identify whatever they want. But I think it can also provoke war, because ordinary people will fight for their country."
With an estimated 150,000 Russian troops on three sides of Ukraine, the U.S. has warned that Moscow has already decided to attack. Still, President Joe Biden and Putin tentatively agreed to a meeting brokered by French President Emmanuel Macron in a last-ditch effort to avoid war.
If Russia moves forward, the meeting will be called off, but the prospect of a face-to-face summit has revived hopes in diplomacy to prevent a conflict that could devastate Ukraine and cause enormous economic damage across Europe. which is heavily dependent on Russian energy.
Russia says it wants Western guarantees that NATO will not allow Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to join as members - and Putin said on Monday that a simple moratorium on Ukraine's accession would not suffice. Moscow has also called on the coalition to stop the deployment of weapons to Ukraine and withdraw its forces from Eastern Europe - demands that the West rejected outright.
Macron's office said Biden and Putin have "accepted the principle of such a summit," which will be followed by a broader meeting at which other "relevant stakeholders will discuss security and strategic stability in Europe."
Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the administration is always ready to negotiate to avert war - but also to respond to any attack.
During Monday night's emergency meeting, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Putin had "put a choice before the world" and that it "should not look away" because "history tells us to look the other way". Confronting such animosity would be a far more costly path."
China's UN ambassador Zhang Jun called for restraint and a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
Putin's announcement shattered a 2015 peace deal signed in Minsk that required Ukraine to offer broad self-rule in rebel areas, a major diplomatic coup for Moscow.
That deal was opposed by many in Ukraine, who saw it as a surrender, a blow to the country's integrity, and a betrayal of national interests. Putin and other officials argued on Monday that the Ukrainian government has shown no appetite to implement it.
More than 14,000 people have been killed since conflict began in the Donbass eastern industrial region in 2014, shortly after Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.
Potential Flashpoint Manifolds. Continued shelling continued on Monday along a tense line of contact separating the opposing forces. Unusually, Russia said it had blocked an "incursion" from Ukraine – which was denied by Ukrainian authorities. And Russia decided to prolong military exercises in Belarus, which could provide a stage for an attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
Ukraine and separatist rebels have blamed the ceasefire violations and hundreds of explosions are recorded daily.
While separatists have alleged that Ukrainian forces were firing on residential areas, Associated Press reporters reporting from several towns and villages along the line of contact in Ukraine-occupied territory did not report any significant escalation from the Ukrainian side. Have seen and have given indications of heavy shelling. Separatists destroyed houses and broke roads.
Some residents of the main rebel-held city of Donetsk described sporadic shelling by Ukrainian forces, but they said it was not on the same scale as earlier in the conflict.
Separatist officials said on Monday that at least four civilians were killed and several others wounded in Ukrainian shelling in the past 24 hours. Ukraine's military said two Ukrainian soldiers were killed over the weekend, and another soldier was wounded on Monday.
Ukraine's military spokesman Pavlo Kovalchuk insisted that the Ukrainian military was not retaliated.
Ekaterina Evseva, 60, in the village of Novognativka, part of the Ukrainian government-controlled part, said the shelling was worse than the height of fighting at the start of the conflict.
"We are on the edge of a nervous breakdown," she said, her voice trembling. "And there's nowhere to run."
In another worrying sign, the Russian military said it killed five suspected "saboteurs" who moved from Ukraine to Russia's Rostov region and also destroyed two armored vehicles and captured a Ukrainian soldier. . Ukraine's Border Guard spokesman Andrey Demchenko dismissed the claim as "malicious".
With fears of aggression high, the US administration sent a letter to the UN human rights chief claiming that Moscow had prepared a list of Ukrainians to be killed or sent to detention camps after the invasion. The letter, first reported by The New York Times, was obtained by the AP.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the claim was false and no such list existed.