Defiant Ukrainians stage ‘day of unity’ after Russian invasion failed to materialise

1.4k

View
comments

Ukrainians defied pressure from Moscow with a national show of flag-waving unity on Wednesday, even as the West warned it has seen no sign of a promised pullback of Russian troops from the country’s borders.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who declared the ‘unity day’ to coincide with the rumoured date of Putin’s invasion, addressed the nation after the attack failed to materialise – telling his countrymen that ‘we can defend our home only if we stay united.’

‘We are united by a desire to happily live in peace,’ he added, before flying via helicopter to a training range in Ukraine’s west where live-fire tank and aircraft drills were underway.

Across the country, people of all ages waved flags in the streets and from apartment windows as a two-fingered salute in the face of Putin’s threat to attack with some 150,000 troops massed on the borders.

Hundreds unfolded a 650ft flag at Kyiv’s Olimpiyskiy Stadium, while another was draped in a shopping centre in the capital. In the government-controlled part of Ukraine’s eastern region of Luhansk, where a war with Russian-backed separatists has simmered since 2014, residents stretched another huge flag across a street.

As the celebrations took place, a fresh round of ‘negotiating’ got underway between East and West – with NATO warning Putin does not appear to be pulling troops back from the border as promised, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pledged to ‘retaliate’ to any new British sanctions on his country.  

Elsewhere today… 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he is ‘positive’ that Joe Biden is ready to enter into talks about European security and Putin wants to engageRussia denied having anything to do with a cyberattack that took down banks and the website of Ukraine’s defence ministry overnight  The EU called on Russia to take ‘concrete steps’ to de-escalate its troop build-up around Ukraine, while hailing ‘signs of hope’Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s right-wing leader, arrived in Moscow for trade talks today – brushing off pressure from the US to cancel the trip 

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said earlier today videos of tanks being taken away from Crimea are merely routine troop movements instead of a promised drawn-down, and that Russia actually appears to be increasing its forces.

‘If they really start to withdraw, that’s something we will welcome. But that remains to be seen,’ he added while sitting down for a NATO summit in Brussels on next moves. ‘Just seeing the movement of battle tanks doesn’t confirm a real withdrawal.’

Ben Wallace, UK defence secretary, sounded a similar note of caution as he arrived for the summit – saying that Russia’s forces remain at a high level of readiness that can be maintained for ‘weeks’ as talks resume at the barrel of a gun. 

‘It’s pretty clear that [Russia’s] intentions towards Ukraine are to change their behaviour, and indeed change NATO’s relationship with Ukraine, and they’re doing so at the threat of invasion,’ he added. 

Meanwhile Lavrov, who has been leading negotiations with NATO and the US, said in Moscow today that ‘hysteria’ over an invasion is ‘puzzling’ to Russia while accusing the allies of trying to dictate where Putin can position troops on his own territory. 

Underlining concerns about the Russian ‘withdrawal’, analysts from Conflict Intelligence Team – a respected group which tracks Russian military movements – said forces being withdrawn from Crimea will actually be moved closer to Ukraine. 

Moscow says the units are being moved to their ‘home bases’, but the homes of at least three of the four units leaving Crimea are as close or closer than their current position relative to Ukraine.

Izvestia newspaper reported that units of the 3rd, 42nd and 150th Motorised Rifle Divisions are being sent back to their permanent bases.

Yet the 3rd is based at Valuyki and Boguchar, respectively 15 and 42 miles from the Ukrainian border in Belgorod and Voronezh regions respectively.

The 150th is based in Novocherkassk, Rostov region, some 31 miles from the border.

The troops will be as close – or closer – to the border at their permanent barracks.

Of the three named divisions being pulled out of Crimea, only the 42nd – in Chechnya – is a substantial distance from Ukraine, some 700 miles away.

It comes a day after Putin said he is willing to engage in negotiations with the West over security guarantees designed to ease sky-high tensions. 

Both Mr Stoltenburg and Mr Wallace did welcome the change in tone from Moscow, while pointing out that the crisis is far from over.

‘There’s over 100 battalion tactical groups of the Russian ground forces, that’s 60 per cent of the entire Russian land combat power on the borders of Ukraine,’ Mr Wallace said.

‘130,000-plus troops, both in Belarus and indeed Ukraine, but also out at sea there’s effectively a significant flotilla of Russian and amphibious landing ships, and indeed war ships and missile ships.

‘From a Ukrainian point of view they’re fairly surrounded by a very large force of ready troops. That continues, they haven’t taken the foot of the gas.’

He added: ‘That’s why we’re all here at Nato today and tomorrow to try and work together to reduce tensions and try and de-escalate.’

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, added his voice to the chorus – saying he hasn’t seen ‘any withdrawal yet’. 

Putin wants Ukraine to be banned from joining NATO and for the alliance to withdraw troops from ex-Soviet states. 

Both of those demands have been dismissed but a range of other compromises have been offered on arms control, transparency around missile deployments, and information-sharing on military drills that Putin has said he is willing to discuss.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister and chief negotiator, has said a 10-page response to NATO’s offers has been prepared though not yet sent. 

Kyiv Mayor Wladimir Klitschko has said that he hopes for a ‘last-minute’ diplomatic solution between Russia and Ukraine.

The former heavyweight champion of the world told LBC that he hoped that Russia would not invade his country on Wednesday.

‘It is the first time in the history of Ukraine that so many Russian soldiers stayed at the border’, he said.

‘The risk (of) aggression towards Ukraine is pretty big. We prepare for any scenario.

‘We do not know how the situation will develop but we hope that the invasion does not happen, and that at the last minute we have a diplomatic solution.’

Meanwhile the former head of MI6 Sir John Sawers said that the threat of a ‘full-blooded’ Russian invasion has now ‘receded’ after Putin made ‘a number of important gains’ in the military standoff.   

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Sir John said that invasion was always ‘very risky’ for Putin and the threat of an attack was perhaps not as real as some governments had made out.

‘I don’t think that President Putin ever decided to invade the country and, indeed, I think it would always have been a very risky course for him to have taken,’ he said.

‘But I think Russia has also come out of this with a number of important gains,’ he added, saying it has got Russia’s security concerns back to the top of the international security agenda, the Ukrainians have been intimidated and Europeans have been reminded how dependent they are on Russian gas.

Sir John added: ‘I think in some ways President Putin will think he’s ahead on points on this and he still has various military options which he can use in Ukraine.

‘I think the risk of full-blooded invasion … was never quite as high as was being portrayed by some Western governments, but I think that has receded.’ 

Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly sought to project calm but also strength during the crisis. 

In an apparent show of defiance, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared that Wednesday would be a ‘day of national unity,’ calling on citizens to display the blue-and-yellow flag and sing the national anthem in the face of ‘hybrid threats.’

Even amid the glimmers of hope, Biden said 150,000 Russian forces are now massed near Ukraine and in neighboring Belarus – an increase from an earlier U.S. estimate of 130,000 troops.

Russia’s claim that it pulled back troops ‘would be good, but we have not yet verified that,’ Biden said. ‘Indeed, our analysts indicate that they remain very much in a threatening position.’

Russia has denied having any invasion plans. It wants the West to keep Ukraine and other former Soviet nations out of NATO, halt weapons deployments near Russian borders and roll back forces from Eastern Europe.

The U.S. and its allies have roundly rejected those demands, but they offered to engage in talks with Russia on ways to bolster security in Europe.

Speaking after meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin said the West agreed to discuss a ban on missile deployment to Europe, restrictions on military drills and other confidence-building measures – issues that Moscow put on the table years ago.

He said Russia is open to discuss ‘some of those elements,’ but added that it would do so only in combination ‘with the main issues that are of primary importance for us.’

While Scholz reiterated that NATO’s eastward expansion ‘is not on the agenda – everyone knows that very well,’ Putin retorted that Moscow will not be assuaged by such assurances.

‘They are telling us it won’t happen tomorrow,’ Putin said. ‘Well, when will it happen? The day after tomorrow? What does it change for us in the historic perspective? Nothing.’

Scholz also said diplomatic options are ‘far from exhausted,’ and he praised the announcement of a troop withdrawal as a ‘good signal,’ adding: ‘We hope that more will follow.’

The Russian Defense Ministry released images of tanks and howitzers rolling onto railway platforms and more tanks rolling across snowy fields. 

It did not disclose where or when the images were taken, or where the vehicles were headed, other than ‘to places of permanent deployment.’ 

Ukraine expressed skepticism.

‘We won’t believe when we hear, we’ll believe when we see,’ Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

And NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that there have been no signs, so far, of a reduced military presence on Ukraine’s borders.

Meanwhile, a series of cyberattacks knocked out the websites of the Ukrainian army, the defense ministry and major banks. 

There was no indication that the relatively low-level denial-of-service attacks might be a smoke screen for more serious cyber mischief. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. has not yet determined who was behind the attacks.

Despite the worst East-West tensions in decades, few Russians expect a war. In a village in Russia’s Belgorod region, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Ukraine’s border, residents carried on with life as usual, even as more military personnel have been passing through village streets.

‘We are really on the border, we really have relatives here and there, everyone has somebody’ on the Ukrainian side, villager Lyudmila Nechvolod said. ‘No one wants war.’

Russian lawmakers urged Putin to recognize rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine as independent states. The State Duma, Russia’s lower house, voted to submit an appeal to Putin to that effect.

Putin said the request reflects the Russian public’s sympathy for the suffering of people trapped in the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed over 14,000 since 2014. 

He noted, however, that Russia continues to believe a 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany should serve as the main vehicle for a settlement of the separatist conflict.