KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that his country was a “shield” against Russia and
deserved more support in the face of a feared Russian invasion, as Moscow
test-fired nuclear-capable missiles in a defiant show of force.اضافة اعلان
In a speech at the Munich Security Conference,
Zelensky condemned “a policy of appeasement” towards Moscow.
“For eight years, Ukraine has been a shield. For
eight years, Ukraine has been holding back one of the greatest armies in the
world,” said Zelensky, who travelled to Munich despite shelling in his
country’s conflict-torn east that left two Ukrainian soldiers dead.
He demanded “clear, feasible timeframes” for Ukraine
to join the US-led NATO military alliance — a prospect that Moscow has said
would be a red line for its security.
But he said he was willing to meet with Vladimir Putin, to find out “what the Russian president wants”.
Western officials in Munich continued to raise the
alarm about Moscow’s intentions towards Ukraine, after US President Joe Biden said Friday that he was “convinced” Putin planned to invade, including with an
attack on the capital Kyiv, within days.
They again warned
of enormous sanctions if Russia attacks, with US Vice President Kamala Harris
saying this would only see NATO reinforce its “eastern flank” and British Prime
Minister Boris Johnson urging the West to “stand strong together”.
Strategic missile tests
The increasingly fraught warnings of an invasion, intense clashes in
Ukraine’s east and the evacuation of civilians from Russian-backed rebel
regions have brought fears of a major conflict in Europe to their highest after
weeks of tensions.
The Kremlin insists it has no plans to attack its neighbor, but Moscow has done little to
reduce tensions, with state media accusing Kyiv of plotting an assault on
rebel-held pro-Russia enclaves in eastern Ukraine.
Saturday’s
exercises of strategic forces saw Russia test-fire its latest hypersonic,
cruise and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
Russian
television showed images of Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko
sitting at a round table in the Kremlin situation room, in front of a bank of
screens showing military commanders during the test.
“All the missiles hit their targets, confirming
their performance objectives,” the Kremlin said, adding that the drills
included ground launchers, Tu-95 bombers and submarines.
The United
States insists that, with some 150,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders — as
many as 190,000, when including the Russian-backed separatist forces in the
east — Moscow has already made up its mind to invade.
Some of the
Russian forces, around 30,000 troops, are in Belarus for an exercise which is
due to end on Sunday. Moscow has said that these forces will return to
barracks, but US intelligence is concerned that they could take part in an
invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has
announced a series of withdrawals of its forces from near Ukraine in recent
days, saying they were taking part in regular military exercises and accusing
the West of “hysteria” with claims of an invasion plan.
But Putin has
also stepped up his rhetoric, reiterating demands for written guarantees that
Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO and that the alliance roll back
deployments in eastern Europe to positions from decades ago.
‘Dramatic increase’ in clashes
The volatile frontline between Ukraine’s army and separatists in the
breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk has seen a “dramatic increase” in
ceasefire violations, international monitors from the OSCE said.
Hundreds of
artillery and mortar attacks were reported in recent days, in a conflict that
has rumbled on for eight years and claimed the lives of more than 14,000
people.
Ukraine’s army
and separatist forces traded accusations of fresh shellfire on Saturday, with
Kyiv saying two of its soldiers had died in a shelling attack, the first
fatalities in the conflict in more than a month.
A dozen mortar
shells fell within a few hundred metres (yards) of Ukraine’s interior minister
on Saturday as he met journalists on a tour of the frontline.
The minister, Denys
Monastyrskiy, was forced to seek cover as the shells exploded, shortly after he
gave on camera interviews to international media, AFP correspondents saw.
The rebels
declared general mobilizations in the two regions, calling up men to fight even
as they announced mass evacuations of women and children into Russia.
Moscow and the rebels have accused Kyiv of planning
an assault to retake the regions, claims fiercely denied by Ukraine and
dismissed by the West as part of Russian efforts to manufacture a pretext for
war.
Russian
investigators said they had opened a probe into media reports that a shell
fired by Ukrainian forces had exploded about 1kmacross the border in Russia’s
Rostov region, without causing damage or injuries.
Ukrainian
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba denounced reports of Ukrainian shells falling on
Russian territory as “fake”.
Germany and France on Saturday urged their citizens
to leave Ukraine.
Both German airline Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines
said they would stop flights to Kyiv and Odessa from Monday until the end of
February, but would maintain flights to western Ukraine.
Read more Region and World
.jpg)
.jpg)
