The United States is considering sending warships to the Black Sea in the coming weeks to signal support for Ukraine, as tensions at the Donbass border raise fears of a possible escalation. This is what the Cnn, citing sources close to the Pentagon.
Sparks in the Donbass between Moscow and Kiev. Ukraine asks to join NATO
by Rosalba Castelletti
The US Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea, but the deployment of warships would send a clear message to Russia that the US is following closely. The United States must give 14 days’ notice for eventual entry into the Black Sea under the 1936 agreement, which grants Turkey control of the entry strait. It is unclear whether notice has already been given.
“Russia has never had so many troops on the Ukrainian border since 2014,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, expressing Washington’s growing concern. “The United States is increasingly concerned about the recent escalation of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine including the movements of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. These are deeply disturbing signs.”
The Merkel-Putin phone call
The mass of Russian troops on the Donbass border also worries the German chancellor Angela Merkel than in a phone call with the Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin he addressed the question of “the strengthened Russian military presence around Eastern Ukraine”. The Chancellor “asked for the reduction of this reinforcement of the troops, in order to achieve a relaxation of the situation”.
Putin’s muscle show on the border with Ukraine: tanks, armored vehicles and rocket launchers to test Biden’s intentions
by Gianluca Di Feo
For its part, Russia does not rule out intervening to help the separatist forces in Ukraine. “It all depends on the scale of the conflagration,” said the deputy head of the Kremlin Administration, Dmitry Kozak. “If, as our President says, in the Donbass there is a situation like that of Srebrenica, we will probably have to defend them,” he added. “Kiev must not raise the level of the clash because it would be the beginning of the end for the country”.
According to Kozak, joining NATO will then lead to the disintegration of Ukraine: “I support the opinions that also exist within Ukraine, namely that military action would mean the beginning of the end of Ukraine: it would mean shot himself in the foot, “Kozak said.
Zelensky’s visit to the front
The Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenskij, went to the front line in the east of the country, where he recalled that since the beginning of the year, 25 Ukrainian soldiers have lost their lives in the conflict, compared to 50 in all of 2020. The region is experiencing a resurgence of the conflict, which has been going on at low intensity for seven years now, between pro-Russian separatists and the army of Kiev.
Zelenskij, who asked NATO to speed up Ukraine’s accession process to the Alliance and also brought home the support of the US president, Joe Biden, against “Russian aggression”, has chosen to visit locations where the ceasefire “has been systematically violated in recent days”. “I want to be with our soldiers in these hard times in the Donbass,” said the Ukrainian president.
Russia, which has always declared that it is not involved in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, has not denied the movement of troops, but has assured that “they do not represent a threat to anyone”. For the inhabitants of the Donbass, mostly Russian-speaking, Moscow has for years facilitated the procedures for acquiring citizenship, in an initiative seen by many as a possible first step towards annexation.
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