The de-escalation announced by Vladimir Putin it does not work in the occupied eastern territories. According to the complaint ofOscein the early hours of today there were “episodes of multiple bombings along the contact line in eastern Ukraine ”. THE separatists backed by Moscow active in the region have accused theUkraine of having opened fire four times in the past 24 hours. Version however denied by Kiev: “Despite the fact that our positions have been hit with weapons prohibitedincluding 122 mm artillery, Ukrainian troops did not open fire in response, “said a press officer of theOperation Join Forces ukraine to the Reuters. And they add: “The separatist forces fired mortar shots against a village in the region of Lugansk hitting a asylum“.
The spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, for his part, stated that “we read and see the reports from there. Of course, our military has more information, considering data from special sources. But it goes without saying even without such information that tensions are mounting. In the past few days, we have heard that Russia would retain enormous offensive potential at the border. But it is our territory that we are talking about. Meanwhile, no one, no Western representative has mentioned the enormous offensive potential of the Ukrainian army that exists on the line of contact ”.
Meanwhile the Cnn aired some satellite images of the border areas between Belarus e Ukraine: according to the American broadcaster, construction of new roads and a bridge along the Pripyat river which bathes both nations and is located less than 7 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Sources on US television have defined the bridge as functional to a strengthening of the Russian military forces in the event of a ‘invasion. Construction of the bridge is being monitored by Western intelligence and military, but it is still unclear whether Russian forces or their Belarusian allies are building it. The Ukrainian National Guard urged citizens to keep their nerve with a message on Twitter: “Keep calm and trust the National Guard.” Meanwhile, the Russian army claimed that ten military convoys with “large, heavy and dangerous loads” have left there Crimea. This was reported by the Russian news agency Interfaxaccording to which the convoys had finished their training drills.
The Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maiotoday had a bilateral summit in Moscow with his counterpart, Sergei Lavrovunderlining that on the Russian side “there is a willingness to resolve the crisis by following the diplomatic path”, the same one that was reported to him “on Tuesday in Kiev by the minister Kuleba“. And he continued: “Working all together for a diplomatic solution means avoid any kind of sanctions“. And on the latter issue Lavrov specified that “sanctions cannot be enacted if at least one country is against it. I don’t think Italy is interested in fomenting tension “, indeed” we see that it follows the tradition of its diplomacy “which is” not to threaten continuously, not to promise punishments, but to seek solutions “. But he specified, as Putin already stated in recent days, that “it is important not to remove some things from the package, including the not enlargement to the east of NATO and non-deployment to the east ”.
Italy, Di Maio continued, encourages “all parties” to implement the Minsk agreements, both for the safety aspects and in the political clauses. “We want to support the ongoing negotiations in both the Normandy format, the NATO-Russia format, and the US-Russia format,” she added. The Italian minister then announced that “with Lavrov we are coordinating the date for a meeting between Draghi and Putin“, Accepting the invitation of the Russian president to the prime minister for a visit to Moscow.
For the administration BidenRussia’s announcement on the withdrawal of troops in Ukraine however, it is false: yesterday an official, answering questions from reporters, said that despite the Russian government having said that it was withdrawing troops from the border with Ukraine, no signs of de-excluded are seen from Moscow. He also added that he has confirmation that in recent days Russia has increased its presence on the Ukrainian border with 7mil soldiers.
In total, it is estimated that there are more 150mila soldiers Russians deployed to the north, east and south of Ukraine: “We continue to receive indications that Russia could find a false pretext at any time to justify an invasion. Any indication we have now is that they intend to only publicly agree to speak out and make claims about de-escalation, while in fact they are mobilizing privately for war. ” However, the Russian military authorities announce that new units of the Western Military District are withdrawing from an area near the border with Ukraine and that they will travel a distance of about a thousand kilometers, although they have not specified their destination.
Twenty warships, according to Russian authorities, also left the port of Makhachkala and started the maneuvers in Caspian Sea: “The crew of the ships of the Caspian Flotilla will have to carry out targeted combat training tasks in difficult environmental conditions and act on various indications coming from the command post of the fleet”.
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