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Images of Russian troops along the border with Ukraine. Weapons on the bridge to Russian-occupied Crimea. Statements of concern from NATO and a US president who assures his Ukrainian counterpart that Ukraine is not alone: Is Russia preparing a new stage in the war against Ukraine?
The most optimistic answer: Russian President Vladimir Putin is only showing his muscles to test US President Joe Biden, and is also punishing Kiev for its recent crackdown on a close confidant of Putin. Option number two: Putin seeks a military confrontation to officially place Russian soldiers as “peacemakers” in the Russian puppet republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. Scenario 3: The Kremlin is preparing a military action to conquer a land corridor through Ukraine to Moscow-occupied Crimea to secure the peninsula’s precarious water supply that has become a Russian military fortress.
Although Kiev, Moscow and the Kremlin-controlled separatists of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) and the “Lugansk People’s Republic” (LNR) agreed to a ceasefire from July 27, 2020 through the Mediation of the OSCE, the trench warfare heated up more than 400 kilometers Front in eastern Ukraine in a small flame. Instead of 20,000 explosions, shootings and other ceasefire violations per month, OSCE observers now counted only hundreds of injuries in a few months.
Moscow is said to have stationed 33,000 soldiers in Crimea.
However, since the end of July, another 45 soldiers have died on the Ukrainian side alone, according to Kiev representative Olexej Arestowitsch on March 27. The day before, there had been the most violent fighting in months: Moscow-controlled units fired artillery and snipers at Ukrainian positions near Shumi north of Donetsk. Four Ukrainian soldiers were killed, according to Kiev.
After the conflict broke out again, Ruslan Khomchak, commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, presented the situation in parliament on March 30: Around 28,000 soldiers were in the Moscow-controlled Donbass. According to information from SZ, these units are not officially Russian army soldiers, but local mercenaries or members of the Kremlin-affiliated Wagner group, a military and security company based in St. Petersburg. According to Khomchak, there are more than 2,000 Russian military officers and advisers in Donbass. Moscow has now stationed 33,000 soldiers in Crimea.
This military picture has been virtually unchanged for months. In addition, however, Russia is moving together on the border with Ukraine, for example in Brjansk, Voronezh and Rostov-on-Don, as well as in Crimea, the Ukrainian commander said. Khomchak spoke of 28 groups of tactical battalions, the equivalent of 20,000 to 25,000 soldiers. Specialists have been examining photos and videos from Russia for days. Troop movements on the border or on the bridge from mainland Russia to Crimea.
The military escalation comes as Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sees relations between Moscow and the West at a “low point.” The EU imposed new sanctions after the attack on opposition activist Alexei Navalny. In February, President Volodymyr Zelensky took action against Putin-related oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk in Kiev. Zelensky shut down the television channels controlled by Medvedchuk, froze his other assets and deposed him as a mediator between Kiev and Moscow, for example in organizing prisoner exchanges.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden announced in his inaugural address at the US State Department on February 4 that it had all ended with leniency toward Moscow. On March 17, Biden said on ABC television that he viewed Putin as a “murderer.” Russia’s president will also pay a “price” for his interference in the previous presidential campaign in favor of Donald Trump. The Russian president immediately ordered the Russian ambassador to return to Moscow, an abrupt step in diplomatic protocol.
The “peacekeepers” in Donbass could later be used to annex eastern Ukraine
That was not Putin’s only response. Four days after Biden’s “murderous” interview, Putin called Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Four days later, Shoigu announced that the 56th Parachute Brigade (with an estimated 4,000 troops) stationed in Russia would move to Crimea. The next day, the fierce battle at Schumi followed.
After Moscow announced exercises by thousands of paratroopers to conquer enemy territory in Crimea in late February, military analysts speculated that Moscow might be planning to conquer a land corridor through Ukraine to Crimea to regain control of the water supply to the Dry Crimea. . Since the start of the war in 2014, Kiev has cut a canal that previously supplied water to Crimea. The conquest of such a land corridor would, of course, be a great act of war. At the moment, however, even the Ukrainians, who are often publicly alarmed, do not believe in him. Commander Khomchak said on Ukrainian television that the General Staff did not believe in an imminent war.
Putin is more likely preparing a possible dispatch of Russian “peacekeeping troops” to Donbass to officially expand their control, a preliminary step for a subsequent annexation of eastern Ukraine. Various representatives of the “New Russia” ideology, which Putin himself supported, have been advocating this for years. Since April 2019, Putin has illegally issued Russian passports to Donbass residents, according to the Eastern Human Rights Group, some 442,000 Russian passports in January.
On January 28 the “DNR” organized the “Russian Donbass” conference in Donetsk. The star guest was Margarita Simonyan, director of the propaganda television of the Kremlin Russia Today. You Embassy: “The people of Donbass want to live in their own home and be part of our great, great homeland. And we have a duty to take care of them. Russia, mother, bring Donbass home!” It is unlikely that Simonjan’s appearance would have happened without the Kremlin’s green light. Officially, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, assured that the annexation of Donbass “was not on the agenda.”
At this time, it would be more plausible for an Anschluss to send Russian “peacekeepers”. In view of the Minsk Protocol negotiated in 2015 by Chancellor Angela Merkel, which officially binds Moscow, Putin needs an excuse to use it to supposedly “secure” Russian-speaking people. Putin’s video conference with Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron on March 30 indicated that he was looking for him. Putin later claimed he was concerned about the “escalation of the armed confrontation provoked by Ukraine” along the front in eastern Ukraine.
In Kiev, President Zelensky announced on Friday night after a crisis summit with his generals: “Our army is in a position to reject anyone.” More important than such ostentatious optimism, however, is America’s further course of action. Under President Donald Trump, Washington began supplying Ukraine with weapons such as the Javelin anti-tank system. So far, the United States has officially supported the Ukrainian military with military aid worth more than a billion dollars. On March 1, the US Department of Defense announced new shipments worth $ 125 million.
In his first phone call with the Ukrainian president on Friday, US President Biden promised Zelensky “continued support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in Donbass and Crimea.” What could have been more important, of course, was what US Chief of Staff Mark Milley had to say to his Russian colleague Valery Gerasimov in a phone call on March 31 in light of the Russian march. Nothing is known about the content of the conversation.
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