Tuesday was another key day in Vladimir Putin’s secret operation plan, but just as a major war with Ukraine seemed imminent, the Russian president suddenly opened the door to peace just a tiny bit.
Putin on Monday exacerbated the Ukrainian crisis by signing two ukases with which Russia recognizes the ‘people’s republics’ Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states. The next escalation came on Tuesday, when the Russian Senate approved Putin’s request to deploy Russian troops abroad – in this case, the Donbas. It was a formalization of what probably had already happened: long columns of equipment, including armored cars and tanks, were spotted in the outskirts of Donetsk during the night from Monday to Tuesday.
It is an open secret that Russian soldiers have been operating covertly in eastern Ukraine since 2014. But a handful of military advisers are different from thousands of soldiers in Russian uniforms who will be tasked with “taking on all the peacekeeping duties” at a time when Putin has dismissed the Minsk Accords. The Russian ‘peacekeepers’ arrive at a time when the simmering conflict has flared up again. On Friday, the leaders of Donetsk and Luhansk suddenly announced that a large part of the civilian population was being evacuated because of an impending “offensive” by Kiev. Thereafter, the number of ceasefire violations still officially in force increased rapidly. A large part of the shelling is carried out by the separatists. Trouw correspondent Michiel Driebergen made his contribution to the radio on Tuesday from an air raid shelter, after the town of Shchastja (in an area controlled by Ukraine) came under heavy artillery fire.
Day and night under fire
In his TV speech, Putin warned that Ukraine must immediately cease all acts of war. But that’s not easy when the opponent fires you day and night with artillery. Moscow is also not afraid to stage Ukrainian ‘attacks’. Over the past weekend, Russian state media continued to publish images of Ukrainian ‘attacks’, where a camera crew happened to be present every time: gunfights with ‘Ukrainian infiltrators’, two burning ‘Ukrainian’ armored cars, which had inexplicably slipped through the lines and were ‘taken out of control’. ‘. The militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic is holding out against the Ukrainian attack, a separatist spokesman said Tuesday. He did not say that the Ukrainian offensive is limited to answering pro-Russian fire.
Meanwhile, Putin tightened the noose around Ukraine’s neck even further. All Tuesday there were conflicting voices from Moscow about what exactly Putin had recognized: the present territory, or the entire provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, a much larger area with large population centers, such as the strategically important port of Mariupol. In a press conference in the Kremlin, Putin made it clear: Russia recognizes the entire ‘oblasti’, an area more than twice the size of the current people’s republics. But, the Russian president immediately added, the discussions over the border should be resolved through negotiations. When asked what could improve relations with Kiev, Putin made three demands: recognition of Crimea as Russian territory, a neutral Ukraine that renounces NATO membership and the abandonment of modern Western weapons by the Ukrainian armed forces. Unacceptable demands for Kiev, but still: did this mean that Putin still wants to negotiate? A previously agreed meeting between US Secretary of State Blinken and his Russian counterpart Lavrov is just being scheduled, Moscow said.
Joe Biden remains pessimistic. “We still believe that Russia is ready to launch a full-scale military attack on Ukraine,” the US president said on Tuesday. As the world watches the Donbas, the main force of the 190,000-strong Russian force appears to be positioned north and north-east of the Ukrainian capital. Striking white identifying marks are painted on the Russian equipment. Twitterers suggested that a ‘Z’ stands for troops around Belgorod, a slant bar for units in Crimea and a triangle is used for the combat battalions in the Kursk region. The signs are probably intended to distinguish friend from foe and indicate that the final preparations have been made. The evacuation of Russian embassy personnel announced on Tuesday is another bad omen.
Under these circumstances, Kiev has to do something. In recent weeks, Ukrainian President Zelensky has made every effort not to provoke Russia — until now. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian president announced that reservists would be called up for the army. A general mobilization of the Ukrainian armed forces is not yet necessary, according to Zelensky “at the moment”.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 23, 2022