U.S. and Ukrainian officials warned that Russia’s move on Feb. 21 to formalize its occupation of eastern Ukrainian territories could herald a fuller-scale invasion of its neighbor.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s move to send additional soldiers into the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine “creates a basis for further armed aggression against Ukraine.” This follows Russian President Vladimir Putin recognizing his proxy administrations as independent.
Speaking beside Estonian President Alar Karis on Feb. 22, Zelensky said the Kremlin’s decision “violates all possible bilateral and multilateral obligations,” including the UN Security Council resolution on Ukraine from Feb. 17, 2015, state news agency Ukrinform said.
Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the war zone on the same day Putin ordered his defense ministry to send more soldiers and weaponry into the easternmost regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Russian military personnel were referred to as “peacekeepers” and it is not clear whether Russia and its proxies intend to take over the remainder of the two Donbas regions, two-thirds of which remain under Ukrainian government control.
Defense Minister Denys Reznikov warned there are “difficult challenges ahead…there will be losses,” in an address he issued to the Armed Forces on Feb. 22. “We will have to go through pain, overcome fear and despair. But we will definitely win. Because we are on our land and the truth is behind us.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Denys Reznikov
Defense Ministry of Ukraine
More than 14,000 people have been killed and more than 1.5 million internally displaced since Russia invaded its neighbor in 2014. There are nearly 190,000 well-equipped Russian troops and sophisticated weaponry deployed in and around Ukraine without valid purpose or stated cause.
Satellite footage released by Maxar Technologies through Western media outlets as of Feb. 20, show that Russian forces are currently repositioning deployments from staging areas closer to Ukraine’s border and within striking distance.
Before Putin’s latest move, Russia painted the war as an internal conflict and insisted it didn’t intend to further invade Ukraine. In response, the U.S. imposed sanctions targeting occupied parts of the Donbas and promised additional, stronger restrictive measures in coordination with the European Union on Feb. 22. Canada as well as said it will impose additional sanctions on top of those already levied for Russia’s war mongering in Ukraine spanning eight years.
Leading to his decision to send more troops to Ukraine, Putin delivered a speech denying Ukraine’s right to sovereignty and nationhood.
Speaking after holding an orchestrated Security Council meeting, the former KGB career officer’s national address “became raving” and “a screed of ahistorical grievances and delusions” said Garry Kasparov, former Russian world chess champion and chairman of the Human Rights Foundation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Feb. 22 also questioned whether Ukraine has a right to sovereignty because he said the government in Kyiv isn’t representative of the country’s constituent parts, Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
Ukraine’s first war-time president since independence, Petro Poroshenko, warned not to assume that Putin will stop now, during an address to parliament.
In Washington, from where the most up-to-date and vocal intelligence has emerged about Russia’s actions toward Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan asserted that Moscow intends to “crush” Ukraine.
Sullivan added (as quoted by The Hill): “We also have intelligence to suggest that there will be an even greater form of brutality because this will not simply be some conventional war between two armies… it will be a war waged by Russia on the Ukrainian people to repress them, to crush them, to harm them.”
Adding to fears that Russia aims to subjugate Ukraine was U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, according to CNN.
Referring to Putin’s recognition of the occupied Donbas territories, she said: “Russia’s announcement is nothing more than theater, apparently designed to create a pretext for a further invasion of Ukraine.”
At an extraordinary UN Security Council meeting called by Ukraine, the country’s permanent representative, Serhiy Kyslytsya, accused Russia of infecting the international body founded to prevent future wars.
“It is with unease that I will now remove my mask and it is not because of the COVID virus,” he said. “We are all vaccinated, there are vaccines for COVID. It is because of the virus that has so far no vaccine. The virus that hit the UN and the virus that is spread by the Kremlin.”
A flurry of high-level diplomacy continues to deter Russia from further aggression. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet Lavrov on Feb. 24 on the condition that Russia does not further invade. It remains unclear whether the meeting, at a still undisclosed European location, will take place after Putin’s recent moves.
Zelensky said Ukraine remains “committed to a peaceful and diplomatic path” after chairing a national security and defense meeting following Putin’s decision.
“We are on our land. We are not afraid of anything or anyone. We owe nothing to anyone, and we will not give anything to anyone,” Ukraine’s second war-time president added.
Ukrainian soldiers in the 80th Air Assault Brigade pictured on Feb. 22.
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