U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday of Russian troops surrounding Ukraine, that it is “high time to seriously de-escalate.” 

“I still think it will not happen,” he told Western leaders gathered in Germany for the Munich Security Conference about a possible Russian invasion of its southwestern neighbor. “But if it did, it would be catastrophic.” 

Guterres has repeatedly called for de-escalation, diplomacy and dialogue, warning that the price of armed conflict in human suffering, destruction and damage to European and global security is too high to even contemplate. 

He said that he is often asked if the world is experiencing a new Cold War. 

“My answer is that the threat to global security now is more complex and probably higher than at that time,” the U.N. chief said, referring to the period from the end of World War II until the Soviet Union’s break up in 1991. 

He noted that during the Cold War, there were mechanisms such as back channels to prevent crises. 

“Today, many of those systems no longer exist and most of the people trained to use them are no longer here with us,” he noted. “So, miscommunication and miscalculation can make a minor incident between powers escalate out of control, causing incalculable harm.” 

The United States and some Western allies say Moscow has amassed more than 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders. Russia dismisses claims it is planning an imminent invasion as Western hysteria. 

The U.N. chief reminded leaders of their commitments under the organization’s charter to settle disputes by peaceful means and not to use force, or the threat of it, against another state. 

“I urge all parties to be extremely careful with their rhetoric,” he added. “Public statements should aim to reduce tensions, not inflame them.” 

Guterres added that geopolitical divides are rarely solved, but “they can and must be managed.” 

Humanitarian operations continue in eastern Ukraine and the United Nation’s local and international staff and their dependents remain, despite the decision of several countries to evacuate their nationals.  

The U.N. says there are 2.9 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and protection due to the eight-year-old conflict in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. The organization has appealed for $190 million this year to reach 1.8 million of the most vulnerable people with assistance. 
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Western leaders and Russia maintained a withering war of words Friday in the weeks-long standoff over Ukraine and amid Kremlin threats to retaliate militarily unless NATO agrees to withdraw the small level of forces it has stationed in the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe, now members of the Western alliance.  

A leader of the Russia-backed separatists in Donbas called Friday for civilians to evacuate from Donetsk to Russia.

Many of the sharpest exchanges focused on a shelling Thursday in eastern Ukraine that damaged a kindergarten and injured five civilians in the small town of Stanytsia Luhanska in Ukrainian government-controlled territory in Donbas.

Separatists in the Luhansk region attempted to blame the Ukrainian government for the shelling, adding that rebel forces returned fire, according to the Associated Press. However, Ukraine disputed the claim, saying Russia-backed separatists had shelled its forces, but they didn’t fire back. The Ukrainian military command said the shelling wounded two teachers and cut power to half the town, according to media reports.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to Poland Friday that an invasion of Ukraine could see tens of thousands of war refugees fleeing to Poland “trying to save themselves and their families from the scourge of war.”  

He said the U.S. is continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine and is boosting the military capability of NATO’s Central European states. “It is ironic that what Mr. Putin did not want to see happen was a stronger NATO on his flank — and that’s exactly what he will see going forward.” 

Poland’s defense minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, welcomed at a joint press conference in Warsaw the Biden administration’s decision to provide 250 M1-A1 Abrams tanks to Poland.

He rebuked Russia for revanchism, saying the “best response” is “not appeasement from the side of the free world, but deterrence.”

Ukraine and the Western allies blame Moscow-backed separatists in the disputed Donbas region for additional artillery and mortar salvos, as well as the strike on the kindergarten. They say the salvos signal Moscow’s intentions to launch a major attack, possibly in the next few days.

False-flag accusations

Citing the shelling, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused Russia of orchestrating “false flag” attacks in eastern Ukraine and said Moscow was behind the shelling. He described the situation as “very grim.” 

The Ukrainian military said separatists opened fire on more than 10 settlements Thursday, using heavy artillery, mortars and a tank. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dubbed the military action a “big provocation.”

Meanwhile, Russia and its armed proxies in Donbas say Ukrainian forces are responsible for Thursday’s shelling across a cease-fire line that has separated the rival forces since 2015, prompting Western officials to warn the Kremlin is preparing an excuse to invade Ukraine. 

The Moscow-backed separatists and Ukrainian authorities again made competing claims over three further salvos of artillery and mortar fire Friday, just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the U.N. Security Council that Russia is planning “a fake, even a real, attack.”

“Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing or a genocide. This could be a violent event that Russia will bring on Ukraine or an outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed reports of a planned Russian invasion but said the situation in eastern Ukraine is “escalating.” He told reporters, “We have repeatedly warned that the excessive concentration of Ukrainian armed forces in the immediate vicinity of the line of demarcation, coupled with possible provocations [by Ukraine], could pose a terrible danger. Now we see that these provocations are taking place.”

A flurry of meetings between Western leaders began Friday, with U.S. President Joe Biden hosting a call involving, among others, the leaders of Ukraine’s neighbor Poland, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, the European Union and NATO. 

Harris in Munich

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Munich for a summit and two days of talks with global leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Zelenskiy.

“I will join other world leaders to underscore our commitments to our allies and partners and demonstrate our unity in the face of Russian aggression on Ukraine’s borders,” Harris tweeted on arrival in Germany.

Ahead of the meetings, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, accused the Kremlin of trying to set the clock back to the Soviet era and criticized what she described as Russia’s “Cold War demands.”

Russia has been demanding “security guarantees” from the West, including a legally binding assurance that Ukraine will never join NATO. Western leaders have rejected the demand for guarantees, on the grounds that Moscow has no right to dictate to independent nations and is only willing to discuss arms control and confidence-building measures.

The Ukrainian military said Friday it had recorded at least 60 cease-fire violations by pro-Russian separatists in the previous 24 hours, with one soldier injured. It accused Russia’s armed proxies of using weapons banned under a cease-fire agreement struck in 2015 under the Minsk Accord, which was brokered by France and Germany.  

Kyiv also says pro-Russian forces have used small drones to drop explosives on Ukrainian positions. It warned Friday that pro-Russian separatist authorities are preparing to evacuate civilians from towns they control, including the city of Donetsk, in preparation for a possible escalation of hostilities.

In a statement posted on Facebook, Gen. Valery Zaluzhniy, Ukraine’s top general, said he had “information from the occupied territories” about an evacuation. He denied his forces have any offensive plans. 

“I officially declare: the armed forces of Ukraine continue to observe the Minsk agreement and the rules of international humanitarian law, and do not plan any offensive operations or the shelling of civilians,” he said.

Separatist fighting

Separatist leaders in Donbas, however, accuse Ukraine of violations and offensive plans, although they concur with Kyiv there has been an uptick in breaches of the cease-fire. 

“The situation has tangibly worsened on the contact line over the past day. The enemy is trying to escalate the conflict on direct orders from the Kyiv military and political leadership,” the militia spokesperson of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Yan Leshchenko, told reporters. 

Militia leaders in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic also said in a statement there has been a “sharp escalation on the contact line.” 

Fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces has been flaring and simmering, escalating and de-escalating for eight years. Mostly low-level skirmishes are routine and a daily occurrence. But some Ukrainian officials say Thursday’s bombardment was different and more menacing because it involved multiple bombardments coordinated along the 250-kilometer frontline.

Other officials, though, disagree, saying coordinated artillery and mortar has been seen before. 

While both sides say there has been a significant uptick in military activity the past 48 hours, assertions repeated by media outlets, reports from a monitoring team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe don’t altogether confirm that.

On Thursday, the OSCE recorded 189 ceasefire violations, including 128 explosions in the Donetsk region, and in the Luhansk region the mission recorded 402 ceasefire violations, including 188 explosions. 

That was an increase on the previous 24-hour reporting period when the mission recorded 24 violations in Donetsk and 129 in Luhansk. 

Cease-fire violations

But on February 11 the OSCE recorded almost 1,000 cease-fire violations across both Donetsk and Luhansk. 

The OSCE has been monitoring military activity in Donbas since 2016, and its remit doesn’t allow it to apportion blame for cease-fire violations, but most are committed by pro-Moscow separatists, former members of the mission tell VOA.

And last year saw a marked decrease in cease-fire violations with the mission recording 93,902, down from 134,767 in 2020. Sixteen civilians were killed and 75 injured in 2021. The worst year for breaches of the cease-fire was in 2017, when the OSCE reported 401,336 violations. 

The OSCE has reported this week some serious obstacles placed by combatants on the freedom of movement of their monitoring teams. On Wednesday 27 kilometers southwest of Luhansk, monitors were told by separatists to leave the area and were instructed to seek prior authorization before trying to visit again. 

On Wednesday, too, the mission’s freedom of movement was restricted at a heavy weapons storage facility controlled by Ukrainian forces in the Luhansk region and later at a storage site in a separatist controlled area in Donetsk. The OSCE also says its drones have been targeted by GPS signal interference “caused by probable jamming.”

Western allies are fearful Russia might try repeat a tactic it was accused of using in 2008 to provoke a military reaction from Georgia and to trigger the first European war of the 21st century. Pro-Russian volunteer paramilitaries, mainly Chechens, prompted confrontations with the Georgians giving the Kremlin a pretext for intervention to defend the breakaway republics of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak with transatlantic leaders Friday about the crisis in Ukraine. The White House has said that the president will inform the leaders about the U.S. efforts to pursue deterrence and diplomacy.

On Thursday, Biden said there is a “very high” likelihood that Russia will invade Ukraine in the next several days.

“We have reason to believe that they are engaged in a false-flag operation to have an excuse to go in,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “Every indication we have is they’re prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine.

“My sense is it will happen within the next several days,” he said.

Biden said, however, he still believes it is possible to find a diplomatic solution that would ease Russia’s concerns about NATO’s missiles and military training exercises in eastern Europe. The Western allies reject Russia’s main demand that NATO rule out the possibility of granting membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken later echoed Biden, telling the U.N. Security Council that the world can expect to see Russia attack Ukraine within days and that intelligence information indicates it could be preceded by a fabricated pretext.

“This could be a violent event that Russia will blame on Ukraine, or an outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government,” Blinken said. “We don’t know exactly the form it will take.”

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Blinken “noted in his remarks at the UN Security Council today that, because we believe the only responsible way to resolve this crisis is through diplomacy and dialogue, he had proposed to meet [Russian] Foreign Minister Lavrov in Europe next week.”

Price said, “The Russians have responded with proposed dates for late next week, which we are accepting, provided there is no further Russian invasion of Ukraine. If they do invade in the coming days, it will make clear they were never serious about diplomacy. We will continue to coordinate with our allies and partners and push for further engagements with Russia through the NATO-Russia Council and OSCE [the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe].”

Meanwhile, Moscow expelled the No. 2 U.S. diplomat from the U.S. Embassy in the Russian capital.

The State Department said the expulsion of Bart Gorman, the deputy chief of mission in Moscow, “was unprovoked, and we consider this an escalatory step and are considering our response.”

In Brussels, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Russia is continuing to mass its forces along Ukraine’s borders and that he sees no indication that Moscow is sending troops home, as it claims.

“We don’t see that,” the Pentagon chief said at a meeting of NATO defense ministers. “Quite the contrary, we see them add to the more than 150,000 troops they already have arrayed along that border. … We even see them stocking up their blood supplies.”

“I know firsthand that you don’t do these sorts of things for no reason, and you certainly don’t do them if you’re getting ready to pack up and go home,” Austin said. U.S. officials say Moscow has sent another 7,000 troops to the Ukraine border in recent days.

Austin added, “There is no reason, of course, that it should ever come to this. Just like there is no reason for Russia to again invade Ukraine” after annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The Kremlin contends it is withdrawing troops from near the Ukraine border but said it will take time to do so.

Austin said that if Russian President Vladimir Putin “chooses war” instead of a diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine crisis, “it will be Mr. Putin who will bear the responsibility for the suffering and the immense sacrifice that ensues.”

Austin said that “a peaceful outcome that respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity represents the best outcome for Ukraine, to be sure, but also for Russia and for the Russian people.”

Russia’s intentions could become clearer after the United States and its allies analyze a document that the Kremlin delivered to U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan in Moscow.

It is Russia’s written response to the recent U.S. and NATO offer to negotiate over their missile deployment and troop exercises in Europe while rejecting Russia’s demands related to possible Ukrainian membership in NATO.

The U.S. is also watching the conflict between Russian separatists and Kyiv’s forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where 14,000 people have been killed in the past eight years.

On Thursday, Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels traded accusations of firing across a cease-fire line. Austin said reports of the shelling were “certainly troubling. We’ve said for some time that the Russians might do something like this in order to justify a military conflict, so we’ll be watching very closely.”

Struck during the shelling was a kindergarten classroom in Stanytsia Luhanska, in pro-Ukrainian territory in Donbas.

Separatists in the Luhansk region blamed the Ukrainian government for the shelling, adding that rebel forces returned fire, according to The Associated Press.

However, Ukraine disputed the claim, saying separatists had shelled its forces, but they didn’t fire back. The Ukrainian military command said the shelling wounded two teachers and cut power to half the town, according to media reports.

“Attacks on kindergartens and schools have been a sad reality for children in eastern Ukraine over the last eight years,” UNICEF said in a statement early Friday.  “More than 750 schools have been damaged since the beginning of the conflict, disrupting access to education for thousands of children on both sides of the contact line.”

“Educational facilities should remain a safe space where children can be protected from threats and crises and a haven where they can learn, play, and grow to their full potential,” UNICEF said.

Yasar Halit Cevik, the head of the monitoring mission for the OSCE, told the U.N Security Council there had been 500 explosions along the contact line from Wednesday evening to Thursday. He said that tensions then appeared to ease, with fewer blasts reported.

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said in a tweet, “The aggressor in Donbas is clear – Russia.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was deeply concerned about the flare-up in violence. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for a condemnation of what he called a “severe violation of Minsk agreements by Russia amid an already tense security situation.”  The U.S. Embassy also made similar comments in another tweet.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “We are concerned that Russia is trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack against Ukraine.”

He said that “NATO’s door remains open” to negotiations, but the Western alliance cannot accept when “big powers intimidate, bully or dictate others.” He invited Russia to “engage in good faith” over the Ukraine crisis.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 

 

 
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