by Anton Zverev, Pavel Polityuk and Polina Nikolskaya
MOSCOW/KIEV/DONETSK (Reuters) – Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine began evacuating civilians from the breakaway regions they rule to Russia on Friday as shelling intensified in the region for the second consecutive day, raising fears in the West that Russia will find there a pretext to invade its neighbor.
“As of today, February 18, a centralized mass evacuation of populations to Russia has been organized,” Denis Pushilin, leader of the self-proclaimed “people’s republic” of Donetsk, announced on social networks, specifying that priority would be given to women, children and the elderly.
Pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk plan to evacuate around 700,000 people.
Hours later, as warning sirens sounded across the city, families began gathering at an evacuation point to board buses heading for Russia.
According to Russian news agencies, President Vladimir Putin has instructed his Ministry of Emergency Situations to organize the reception in southwestern Russia of these evacuees.
Most residents of Ukraine’s separatist-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are Russian-speaking, and Moscow has already granted Russian citizenship to many of them.
This announcement of evacuation came as on the ground, Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists, who accuse each other of ceasefire violations, each reported a considerable intensification shelling, although no deaths have been reported so far.
According to a diplomatic source who has closely followed the conflict in Donbass for years, the shelling of the past two days in eastern Ukraine is among the most intense on the front line since the ceasefire planned in the Minsk agreements of 2015, which did not prevent the occurrence of almost daily clashes in the region.
KIEV DENOUNCES RUSSIAN PROVOCATIONS
Pro-Russian separatist authorities in eastern Ukraine also reported the explosion of a car bomb near an official building in central Donetsk. No casualties were reported.
The Ukrainian authorities assure that they are not considering any offensive operation and accuse Russia of creating incidents and making false accusations to justify a future invasion. They called on the international community to condemn what they described as Russian provocations.
Moscow, for its part, continues to deny any bellicose intentions with regard to Ukraine and announced on Friday that a unit of tanks and two units of mechanized infantry were on their way to their respective bases in the south and the center of Russia.
Russia has been claiming for several days to have begun the withdrawal of some 100,000 soldiers that it had massed on the Ukrainian borders, but Western countries believe that the troop movements on the contrary reflect an intensification of preparations for an offensive.
“On the contrary, we see additional troop deployments towards the (Russian-Ukrainian) border including advanced forces that would be involved in any form of aggression,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the conference. Munich on security.
According to a new estimate delivered on Friday by the American ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter, the United States is now assessing the number of troops deployed by Russia on the borders of the Ukraine between 169,000 and 190,000, nearly double the 100,000 men counted at the end of January.
“This is the largest mobilization in Europe since the Second World War,” said Michael Carpenter.
WESTERN LEADERS MEETING AROUND BIDEN
The Russian army also participates in military maneuvers in Belarus, in northern Ukraine. These exercises must end on Sunday and Russia assured that its troops were then doomed to leave.
Before meeting with Vladimir Putin this Friday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, however, hinted that the Russian army could stay longer in his country. “The armed forces will stay as long as necessary,” he said, quoted by the BelTa agency.
Despite these growing tensions, which relate more generally to Russian security requirements vis-à-vis the United States and NATO, diplomatic negotiations continue.
US President Joe Biden is to chair a telephone meeting on this crisis on Friday with several other leaders, including his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
Canadian heads of government Justin Trudeau, German Olaf Scholz, Italian Mario Draghi, British Boris Johnson and Romanian Presidents Klaus Iohannis and Polish Andrzej Duda will take part in this meeting, as will NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Council Charles Michel, announced the White House and the Elysée.
Joe Biden will speak following this meeting.
Western countries have already warned Russia that it would expose itself to unprecedented sanctions, particularly on the economic level, in the event of an invasion of Ukraine.
Antony Blinken has accepted an invitation from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for a meeting next weekend.
Russia’s ambassador to the UK said the future meeting could be held in Finland or Geneva, Switzerland, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
(Reporting by Reuters offices, writing by Peter Graff; French version by Matthieu Protard, Myriam Rivet and Bertrand Boucey, editing by Blandine Hénault, Jean-Michel Bélot and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)