Government forces in eastern Ukraine are in a serious armed conflict with separatist forces, and a large Russian army, seen as backing rebels in the east of the country, is pressing in. The U.S. White House says there have not been so many Russian troops on the Russian-Ukrainian border since 2014. Ukrainian President Zelensky went to the front lines to cheer himself on Thursday.
A White House spokesman said Thursday that the U.S. is seriously concerned about Russia’s massive troop buildup along the Russian-Ukrainian border and in Crimea, with the U.S. bluntly stating that Russian soldiers are causing escalating tensions by launching attacks in the eastern part of the country.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked the Kremlin to reduce troop levels on the Ukrainian border during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Putin, for his part, stressed to Merkel that the current situation was the result of provocations by the Kiev authorities. In a subsequent public statement, the Kremlin described the tensions caused by its own troop increase as “Russian and German concerns about the tense situation in eastern Ukraine.”
There was no response from the Russian side to Merkel’s appeal. Ukraine and the West have unanimously blamed pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists for the sudden rise in hostility.
The situation is so dire that on Thursday, Ukrainian President Dzerensky, dressed in camouflage military uniforms, bulletproof clothing and a mask to protect against viruses, inspected officers and soldiers on standby in trenches in the Luhansk region on Ukraine’s eastern front.
Zelensky told the soldiers that the situation in the Donbass is getting worse and that the Ukrainian army does not hesitate to counterattack the enemy’s elite shooters who are firing behind our troops. Zelensky, who is on the front line, also said that “it is the highest honor for me to be here,” awarding merit medals to soldiers and praising their heroism in protecting Ukraine’s borders at all costs.
Kiev and the West have recently accused Moscow of deploying large numbers of troops along the Russian-Ukrainian border and in Crimea, the Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia, where clashes between Ukrainian government forces and separatist forces have broken out almost daily for days, with deaths continuing.
One Ukrainian soldier died from gunshot wounds on the same day Zelensky visited the frontline, and Zelensky said the number of Ukrainian servicemen who have died at the hands of separatist forces has risen to 26 so far this year. Last year, Ukraine lost 50 servicemen on the front line.
Merkel, who is the rotating president of the European Union, wants to convince Putin to withdraw his troops, and Germany, along with France and Russia and Ukraine, belongs to the quartet of the peace process in eastern Ukraine. However, Putin argued that the Russian troop increase was “normal and not a threat”. Instead, he accused the Kiev authorities of being behind the provocative actions that have led to the aggravation of the situation.
Moscow seems to be paving the way for its own large-scale involvement, with Russian representative in the peace talks Kosako warning that if Ukraine launches a large-scale military operation against separatist forces in the east of the country, Russian troops will intervene in the name of protecting the lives of the local population. For several years, Moscow has issued Russian passports to some local residents.
Ukrainian President Zelensky asked NATO to step up its approval of the country’s membership so as to avoid Russian aggression, but Kosako warned that Ukraine’s entry into NATO “would be the beginning of the country’s collapse. Russia has long held Ukraine’s membership in NATO as an insurmountable line. However, the representative said that representatives of the four parties – Kiev, Moscow, Berlin and Paris – will begin negotiations on April 19.
The U.S. Pentagon announced last week that U.S. forces in Europe have raised their alert level following recent Russian incursions in eastern Ukraine, and President Joe Biden told Zelenski that the United States is “unwavering” in its support for Ukraine.
The war in the Donbas began in April 2014 after a pro-Western revolution in Ukraine earlier that year, but soon after Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea and secretly supported the rebellion in the eastern part of the country.
The rebellion in eastern Ukraine has left 13,000 dead and 1.5 million people uprooted from their homes, and while the war abated significantly in early 2015 after the quartet reached the ‘Minsk peace agreement,’ the political reconciliation process has made no progress.
Despite Moscow’s constant denials, it is not an overstatement to say that Moscow is the black hand behind the unrest in the U.S. East, as for the West and Ukraine, Russia’s strong military and financial support for the separatist forces in the U.S. East is very obvious.
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