MOSCOW — Russian lawmakers on Tuesday gave
Vladimir Putin the green light to deploy forces abroad, paving the way for the Russian
leader to send troops into Ukraine despite a fierce global backlash.
اضافة اعلان
The unanimous approval by Russia's upper house, the
Federation Council, allows Putin to deploy "peacekeepers" to two
breakaway Ukrainian regions now recognized by Moscow as independent, and
potentially into other parts of Ukraine.
It came in the face of a wave of new sanctions announced by
the US, Britain and EU, after Putin recognized the self-declared
Donetsk and Lugansk rebel republics — including an announcement that Germany was halting
certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.
Putin's plans remained unclear, but Western officials have
been warning for weeks he has been preparing for an all-out invasion of
Ukraine, a move that would spark a catastrophic war in Europe.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the approval, Putin
said the
Minsk peace agreements on Ukraine's conflict no longer existed and he
recognized claims by the separatists to more territory than they currently
control.
He left the door open to a solution, saying the deployment
of Russian troops would "depend on the specific situation ... on the
ground" and appearing to offer Ukraine a way out by giving up on its hopes
to join the US-led NATO military alliance.
"The best solution ... would be if the current Kyiv
authorities themselves refused to join NATO and maintained neutrality,"
Putin said.
'Every indication' of invasion
The Russian foreign ministry said it would soon evacuate its
diplomatic staff from Moscow to "protect their lives".
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had
"every indication" that Moscow "continues to plan for a
full-scale attack on Ukraine".
Kyiv showed no sign of backing down to Moscow, with
Ukrainian Foreign Minister
Dmytro Kuleba in Washington calling on the EU to
promise his country membership and for the West to supply it with more weapons.
"Our best guarantees will be our diplomacy and arms. We
will mobilize the whole world to get everything we need to strengthen our
defenses," Kuleba said.
Kyiv recalled its top diplomat from Moscow as President
Volodymyr Zelensky warned Putin's recognition of the breakaway regions heralded
"further military aggression" against Ukraine.
Kuleba had earlier called on Kyiv's Western allies to impose
"tough sanctions" over Russia's actions and many were moving quickly.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said EU foreign
ministers on Tuesday "unanimously agreed on an initial sanctions
package", as he cancelled a meeting with his Russian counterpart planned
for Friday.
"The sanctions will hurt Russia and will hurt a
lot," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters, adding that
targets for asset freezes and visa bans included 351 members of Russia's lower
house State Duma.
Biden to speak
With US President
Joe Biden due to speak, the White House
said it would reveal its own "severe" measures later in the day.
Britain slapped sanctions on five Russian banks and three
billionaires.
In some capitals there has been debate over whether sending
troops into an area that was already controlled by Russian-backed rebels
amounts to the kind of all-out invasion that would justify imposing the
harshest sanctions.
But Putin's rhetoric about the borders of the separatist
regions was sure to raise concerns.
Putin said that by recognizing the rebel regions, Russia was
also recognizing "the borders within the Donetsk and Lugansk regions at
the time when they were part of Ukraine."
Separatist-controlled territories cover only about a third
of the total area of
Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions, and several cities
in the regions, including the Black Sea port of Mariupol, are outside rebel
territory.
In the frontline town of Shchastya on Tuesday, shellfire
rang out around an electric power station as fearful residents awaited the
Russian deployment.
A shell hit the roof of 59-year-old Valentyna Shmatkova's
apartment block overnight, shattering all the windows in her two-room
apartment.
"We spent the war in the basement," she said,
referring to the 2014 fighting that saw the region break away from Ukraine.
"But we weren't expecting this. We never thought
Ukraine and Russia wouldn't end up agreeing."
Political theater
Most Western officials were not yet describing Putin's moves
as an invasion, but US officials say there is a 150,000-strong Russian force
poised to launch an all-out assault.
Putin announced he was recognizing the territories, which
broke away from Kyiv's control in 2014 in a conflict that cost 14,000 lives, in
a day of political theatre in Moscow.
After a dramatic televised meeting with his top officials,
Putin spoke to the Russian people in a 65-minute address from his Kremlin
office.
In the often angry speech, Putin railed against Ukraine as a
failed state and "puppet" of the West, accusing
Kyiv of preparing a
"blitzkrieg" to retake the separatist regions.
He was then shown signing "friendship" agreements
with rebel leaders that allowed for the official deployment of
Russian forces
to "maintain peace" and the sharing of military bases and border
protection.
Fighting appeared to have eased slightly on Tuesday, with
the Ukrainian military saying there had been 47 ceasefire breaches between
midnight and 5pm, with two soldiers wounded.
On Monday there had been 84 violations, with two soldiers
killed and 18 wounded.
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