Separatists in Ukraine have started evacuating people from Donetsk and Luhansk, building a case for invasion by Russia
Russian-backed separatists have started evacuating people from the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, building a case for Russia to attack Ukraine in self-defence.
Millions of the civilians who live in the two rebel-held regions of Eastern Ukraine are Russian citizen. The separatists made the people board the buses with women, children and the elderly going first. Warning sirens were also heard in Donetsk and Luhansk.
The separatist leader in Donetsk – Denis Pushilin has said that Ukraine is planning to attack the two regions soon, which the West believes is a false propaganda by Russia to justify invasion. Ukraine has also said that it has no plans of invading the two regions.
The President of Russia – Vladimir Putin has said that these people would arrive in Southern Russia and would be the responsibility of Russia.
The evacuation began after the Eastern Ukraine conflict zone saw intensified artillery bombardment on Friday, with Ukraine and separatists blaming each other. The West is sure, the shelling is a part of Russian preparations to stage a pretext to invade its neighbour.
The Ukraine has warned that Russian special forces had planted explosives at a number of social infrastructure facilities in separatist-controlled Donetsk.
Taking it to twitter, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine – Dmytro Kuleba said,
We categorically refute Russian disinformation reports on Ukraine’s alleged offensive operations or acts of sabotage in chemical production facilities. Ukraine does not conduct or plan any such actions in the Donbas. We are fully committed to diplomatic conflict resolution only.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) February 18, 2022
Meanwhile, the United States (U.S.) has accused Russia of making false claims of withdrawing troops from Ukraine border. It said Russia has increased its troops from 120,000 to 190,000 at Ukraine border.
The President of U.S. – Joe Biden has said he is convinced that Putin has decided to invade Ukraine, warning that such an attack could happen in the coming days.
Addressing the media, Biden said, “We have reason to believe that Russian forces are planning and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days. As of this moment, I am convinced that he has made the decision.”
He further said, “Make no mistake, if Russia pursues its plans it will be responsible for a catastrophic and needless war of choice. The US and our allies are prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory from any threat to our collective security, as well.”
The U.S. with United Kingdom (U.K.) has accused Russia of planning Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that briefly knocked Ukrainian banking and government websites offline.
