Ukraine’s president says he unsuccessfully requested a meeting with Putin

the president of UkraineVolodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that he unsuccessfully sought a conversation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putinat a time when the crisis between the two countries is entering its most dangerous phase.

“I started a telephone conversation with the president of the Russian Federation. Result: silence”declared Zelensky in a message at night in which he assured that Russia has “almost 200,000 soldiers positioned in thousands of combat vehicles” on the border with Ukraine.

SIGHT: Ukraine warns that there are 200,000 Russian soldiers on the border: “A great war could start in Europe”

For its part, Russia claimed on Wednesday to have received a request for help from pro-Russian separatists to “counter” the Ukrainian army in a new sign of a possible Russian military intervention in Ukraine despite international sanctions.

Throughout the day, Ukraine mobilized its reservists from 18 to 60 years old, approved the state of emergency and announced that it had been the victim of a new massive cyberattack.

Putinis “as ready as can be” for a full-scale invasion of Ukrainewith “almost 100% of the set of forces that we had calculated that it could deploy” to invade the country, declared a US defense official on condition of anonymity.

The world is facing “a moment of danger,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned at the opening of the UN General Assembly.

A Russian tank participating in the joint exercises of the armed forces of Russia and Belarus. (AFP).

State of emergency

Faced with this situation, the Ukrainian deputies approved by a large majority the state of emergency proposed by Zelenski and the secretary of the national security and defense council, Oleksii Danilov.

“Ukraine needs clear and concrete security guarantees, immediately”, both from Western countries and from Russia, Zelensky told a news conference.

“We are united in the conviction that the future of European security is decided right now at home in Ukraine,” he added.

Hours later, Russia claimed that the leaders of the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine had asked for “help” to “counter aggression” by the Ukrainian army.

The Russian state agency Tass published the letters in this regard dated February 22, the day Russian parliamentarians authorized Putin to deploy troops to Ukraine if necessary.

Russia has begun evacuating its diplomatic staff from Ukraine, the embassy told AFP on Wednesday. For its part, the United States had already decided last week to move its embassy from Kiev to Lviv, in the west of the country. And in a statement Wednesday, France urged its citizens to leave the country “without delay.”

Just before, the Russian leader had insisted that Russian interests were “non-negotiable”, although he mentioned the possibility of a “direct and honest dialogue with the West”.

On Monday, he even questioned the very legitimacy of Ukraine’s existence, accusing it of being an instrument in the hands of NATO’s anti-Russian policy of aggression.

Ukrainian servicemen in a frontline position with Russian-backed separatists near the eastern Ukraine city of Schastia, Lugansk, on February 23, 2022. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP)

sanctions

At the international level, the European Union (EU) announced on Wednesday sanctions against the Russian Defense Minister and military chiefs, the Kremlin Chief of Staff, the Minister of Economic Development and the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their role in the recognition of the breakaway regions of Ukraine.

The sanctions published in the Official Gazette of the EU consist of the freezing of assets and visa bans against those affected.

In turn, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, announced on Wednesday sanctions against the company in charge of operating the Nord Stream II gas pipeline, which links Russia with Germany.

The measure was announced after Germany announced on Tuesday that it would suspend this controversial gas pipeline.

The day before, the United States had already made public the measures against Russian banks and oligarchs, denouncing the “beginning of a Russian invasion” in Ukraine.

Russia promised a “strong” and “painful” response to US sanctions.

The measures remain modest compared to those announced in the event of an invasion, and Moscow has nearly $640 billion in foreign exchange reserves and $183 billion in a sovereign wealth fund to deal with them.

For his part, Putin remains in suspense about his military intentions. After recognizing the independence of the breakaway “republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk on Monday, the Russian upper house gave the green light for the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine.

wave of refugees

These decisions lay the groundwork for a large-scale intervention, but so far there is no information on significant troop movements.

Kiev has been fighting separatists in the east of the country for eight years, a conflict that has left more than 14,000 dead.

Many fear that the current crisis could lead to the worst conflict in Europe since 1945, when World War II ended.

A Russian offensive could spark a “new refugee crisis” with up to 5 million people displaced, the US ambassador to the UN in New York warned on Wednesday.

On the eastern front, renewed fighting between the army and separatists in recent days continued on Wednesday.

One Ukrainian soldier was killed in a shelling and another was wounded, the army said.

Luhansk separatists also reported the death of a fighter on Wednesday. A civilian was also killed in a shelling overnight, according to the same source.

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Source: Elcomercio