Western countries withdraw, Ukrainians on their own

The Netherlands and Germany, among others, followed the American example this weekend by evacuating most embassy personnel and advising citizens to leave. The US and UK are also withdrawing staff from the OSCE frontline monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine. Neighboring countries of Ukraine are preparing for a refugee influx.

The Dutch cabinet is calling on people to leave Ukraine ‘while commercial flights are still available’. KLM has canceled all flights, but other airlines are still flying. Israeli airlines have increased the number of flights at the request of the Israeli government to pick up as many nationals as possible.

Top Russian officials – not President Putin himself – deny in all keys that they have plans of attack. Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, accused the US of “a propaganda campaign” this weekend. Putin’s foreign adviser Yuri Ushakov said “hysteria has reached its peak.”

But Russia refuses to explain the encirclement of Ukraine by more than 100,000 soldiers, artillery systems and naval vessels. As a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Russia is required to respond to requests for explanations for “unusual military activities” within 48 hours. That deadline expired on Sunday.

Separatist areas

The Russian parliament, which is led by the Kremlin, says it will decide Monday on a proposal to recognize two separatist areas in eastern Ukraine as independent states. By doing so, Russia would abort the peace process and pave the way for permanent Russian military bases in eastern Ukraine – now Moscow is denying evidence of military support for the separatists.

Ukraine nevertheless calls for calm. “The best friend of our enemies is panic in our country,” President Zelensky said on Saturday. He called the US warnings about an imminent Russian invasion dangerous and speculative. “All this information creates panic and does not help us.”

A prominent Ukrainian military think tank, Center for Defense Strategies, concluded on Saturday that the Russian troop build-up insufficient for a large-scale invasion† The think tank says there is a ‘great risk’ of an escalation on the frontline in eastern Ukraine and of a ‘hybrid invasion’, for example via attacks and cyber attacks.

But the US continues to sound the alarm about an imminent large-scale invasion. President Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday the Russian military has been positioned in the past 10 days to begin “any moment” with “very large military action in Ukraine.” The US government says it is relying on classified intelligence. The Americans have not shared these with Kiev, possibly because of well-known suspicions of Russian infiltration within the Ukrainian security service.

German Chancellor

After calls from Biden and Macron with Putin failed over the weekend, all eyes on the diplomatic front are now on German Chancellor Scholz. He will visit Kiev on Monday and fly to Moscow on Tuesday. Sources around Scholz temper expectations in German media. The main purpose of the visit is to better understand Putin’s intentions and to initiate a dialogue.

Other countries are sending additional weapons to Ukraine. On Sunday, planes carrying anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank weapons from the US and Lithuania landed in Kiev. The Netherlands has still not responded to a Ukrainian request for defensive weapons. Minister Hoekstra said this weekend that the cabinet will make a decision this week.

For many Ukrainians, the departure of Western citizens and government representatives confirms what they already feared: if Russia attacks, they will be on their own. “This is when I feel that Ukrainians are being treated as second-class people,” Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Daria Kaleniuk wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “I now fully understand that we are on our own and will have to fight for our country and our freedom.”