“Not enough chaos in the world… Is World War III coming?” The “Donbass War”, which has been quiet on the eastern front of Ukraine for a long time, has heated up rapidly in the past 7 days. The Ukrainian side was first harassed by rumors of Internet information warfare, and then four Ukrainian engineers who removed mines were also killed by pro-Russian legions in a raid on the front line in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian government then publicly accused “Kiev’s intention to break the ceasefire agreement and restart the war in the Donbas” and used it to mobilize a large number of elite troops to the Ukrainian-Russian border for a “joint military exercise”. After the military exercises, a large number of heavy Russian forces moved directly into the annexed Crimean peninsula, while NATO allied forces detected “extremely intensive incursions of Russian warplanes into the airspace” across the North Sea – all unusual signs that surprised U.S. and EU forces. All these unusual signs surprised the U.S. military and the European Union, and forced the Ukrainian military and NATO command to hold emergency meetings for several days to prepare for “an imminent and urgent crisis in the east of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military said that since Jan. 1, 2021, pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine – the “Army of the Donetsk People’s Republic” and the “Army of the Lugansk People’s Republic “have violated the ceasefire several times and have killed a cumulative total of 16 Ukrainian soldiers on the front line. The latest serious clashes between the two sides took place on March 26 in the confrontation point in the town of Shumy in northern Donetsk.
According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, a group of Ukrainian soldiers were ordered to prepare a minefield in front of their own trenches when they were shot and killed by Donovan snipers during the tense process of mine removal. In the process of shooting, the pro-Russian separatists not only sent a number of snipers to shoot, but also set up a killing space with mortars, rockets and machine guns when Ukrainian rescue troops came to rescue the wounded soldiers.
The clashes in the town of Shumi ended with four Ukrainian troops killed in action. But then, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rushed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron to denounce the “lack of discipline” of the German, French and EU governments towards the Ukrainian government, accusing Ukraine of “renewed aggression” with the intention of breaking the Minsk agreements. “The pro-Russian independent regions in the east of Ukraine.
The picture shows the Russian troops stationed on the Crimean Peninsula at the time. Photo/Reuters
While Lavrov is making high-profile attacks on Merkel and Macron, Germany and France are negotiating with Moscow to introduce the Russian vaccine “Sputnik V” due to a new wave of epidemic explosions at home. So at this sensitive moment, Paris and Berlin do not dare to stimulate the tension in the U.S. East.
But at the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry has suddenly deployed 28 elite “battalion tactical groups” from various Russian military regions under the guise of “large-scale military exercises” and concentrated these The armed forces were concentrated on the Russian-Ukrainian border – especially on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia – and did not show signs of withdrawal until the end of the exercise, but continued to advance in the direction of the east of the country, and even on the Russian social networks, hundreds of artillery units could be seen Even on the Russian social networks, hundreds of self-propelled artillery pieces can be seen on the boards of the Crimean Peninsula.
The Russian military’s westward march is supposed to be a normal exercise of regular civilian attack and military intimidation, but the related military developments have caused a high degree of tension among the three Ukrainian armies and even NATO’s U.S. forces – because the unusual deployment of Russian battalions and tactical groups, as well as the massive deployment of artillery units toward the border, are all tactical moves like the Russian army’s 2014 The Russian army’s unusual deployment of battalions and tactical groups, as well as the deployment of artillery units toward the border, are all tactical moves that resemble the “precursors to war” of the 2014 war in the Donbas, when Russian forces secretly entered the war.
In addition to the unusual dynamics of the army on the ground, the past month has also seen a sudden spate of unusual “Ukrainian military mobilization disinformation” on the Ukrainian and Russian web sites, claiming that the Kiev authorities are preparing to mobilize all three armies for a major attack on pro-Russian areas in eastern Ukraine. -While this claim has been refuted by Kiev, the Russian military has used it as evidence to accuse Ukraine of taking the initiative to “incite aggressive provocations” against Russia.
The picture shows Ukrainian troops. Photo/AFP
The picture shows pro-Russian forces in the east of Ukraine. Photo/Associated Press
This inexplicable wave of cyber warfare has quickly pushed sensitive Ukrainian-Russian relations back to a high level of confrontation. For Ukraine itself, patriotic sentiments of outrage are being mobilized from outside, while Russia, in turn, is interpreting the atmosphere in Ukraine as “Russophobic”, expanding its interpretation of Ukraine’s real intention to go to war on the one hand, and reasonably ordering the military to send troops to the western front.
In addition, there have been controversial political rumblings among the top generals on the eastern front and the Russian army over the past few weeks. In the Donetsk Republic, for example, there is a renewed call for the “motherland Russia” to “take the initiative and annex the Donbas region” before the Ukrainian forces re-invade in order to protect their Russian compatriots in advance.
At the same time, there are also hawkish and aggressive statements among top Russian generals, stressing that the Cold War truce of the Minsk Agreement is doomed to collapse and that Russia should seize the opportunity to permanently dismantle Ukraine’s anti-Russian forces as soon as possible, even by attacking Ukraine itself and helping the Ukrainian East to start a full-scale war, “expelling Ukraine from the Sea of Azov and occupying all the land east of the Nebo River!”
Although all the above war rhetoric was in the past mostly “normal energy play” of Russian hawkishness, except for the unusual state of affairs on the Ukrainian-Russian border, there is a lot of tension in the North Sea – Black Sea – Baltic Sea – Bering Sea -In the past week, there has been a high frequency and intensity of “Russian Air Force incursions into NATO airspace” in the Arctic and North Atlantic airspace. In one day, March 29, NATO air forces took to the air 10 times to intercept Russian bombers from all directions.
Pictured is one of the Russian nuclear submarines conducting a military exercise on the Arctic ice on March 26. Photo/AP/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service
Russian Air Force. Photo/Reuters
The intense pressure of Russian military aircraft also prompted a high level of alarm from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the U.S. European Command, but the Russian media countered that “this is just the Russians returning the favor” because NATO air force spying on Russian soil has increased by 30 percent since President Biden took office. The air reconnaissance has increased by more than 30 percent since President Biden took office, and Moscow has gradually lost patience with NATO due to various provocations from the air and naval forces and the new diplomatic war.
However, Moscow’s claims have been refuted by NATO countries because Russian air incursions in the North Sea have been increasing year after year for the past two years, and the air probes and pressure on NATO allies have not been slowing down – especially after Biden’s election victory, the U.S.-Russian relationship has plummeted to an icy valley, so the Russian military’s short-term The dramatic increase in Russian air operations has been seen by NATO as a pressure test for U.S. forces and European allies, and one of the key arenas is the highly unstable and continuously war-torn Ukraine.
After a series of tense events, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Ruslan Khomchak, testified before the Ukrainian parliament on the 30th, confirming that the current situation in the east of the country “has entered the brink of war”.
“… The unusual activity of Russian forces in the U.S. East is almost identical to the signs of war in 2014-2015.”
Photo/Reuters
After General Komchak explained the situation on the front line to the parliament, the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill on the same day that the current ceasefire agreement with the war in the Donbas was no longer valid and that the three Ukrainian armies would immediately enter a high state of readiness; at the same time, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry tried to negotiate with the Moskva side to renegotiate a new version of the “Donbas The Russian Federation has categorically rejected Ukraine’s invitation to a ceasefire, but instead turned around and denounced “Ukraine’s lack of sincerity… It has no intention to collude with the West and start an aggressive war”.
Russia argued that the Ukrainian authorities had no intention of fulfilling the Minsk Agreement to end the war, so any further temporary ceasefire would be a meaningless delay; but in substantive politics, Russia did not recognize the agreement’s “responsibility for Russia’s secret participation in the war,” and the Ukrainian government could not accept it. The Ukrainian government is also unable to accept the Russian demand for “forced constitutional amendments” to allow the separatists in the east of the country to achieve a quasi-secessionist, autonomous and independent status.
All of these conditions and the massive and unusual military operations eventually forced the United States to make a counter-attack gesture. In addition to the emergency response meetings of NATO countries, according to the New York Times, the U.S. European Command silently entered a state of maximum alert at the end of March and ordered the mobilization of Europe and the United States to prepare for the “immediate threat of conflict.
“Russia has set an early trap for conflict in Ukraine.” The action, also released by the U.S. side on March 31 to major Western media outlets such as Reuters, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, “will be the first major strategic test Putin will use to repair the Biden regime.”
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