Irussia takes action. Vladimir Putin announced on Thursday February 24 a military operation in Ukraine to defend the separatists in the east of the country, despite international outcry and sanctions imposed by the West. Shortly after this surprise statement by the master of the Kremlin, at least two powerful explosions were heard in Kiev, in the city center, and others in Kramatorsk, in the East, in Odessa, on the Black Sea and in Kharkiv, second city in the country.
US President Joe Biden immediately denounced an “unjustified attack” which will cause “suffering and loss of human life”. “The world will hold Russia to account,” he promised. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg condemned a “reckless and unprovoked attack”. At the UN, Ukraine called on Russia to “put an end to the war”, while France denounced Russia’s “contempt” for the United Nations.
“I have decided on a special military operation,” Vladimir Putin announced at dawn in a surprise statement on television, without specifying whether this intervention would be limited to eastern Ukraine or whether it would be larger.
Ukrainian soldiers called to “lay down their arms”
“We will strive to achieve a demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” said the Kremlin master sitting at a dark wooden desk, promising to bring “to court those who have committed many crimes, responsible for the ‘bloodshed of civilians, especially Russian citizens’.
“We do not have in our plans an occupation of Ukrainian territories, we do not intend to impose anything by force, on anyone”, he assured, calling on the Ukrainian soldiers “to lay down their arms”. Then, he addressed himself to those “who would try to interfere with us (…) they must know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead to consequences that you have never known before”.
A few hours earlier, the Kremlin had announced that the leaders of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian separatist “republics” in eastern Ukraine had asked for Vladimir Putin’s “help” to “repel Ukrainian aggression”. On Monday, the Russian president had recognized the independence of these separatist “republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk, then obtained the next day from the upper house of the Russian Parliament the green light for a deployment of forces.
Putin refuses dialogue with Zelensky
Shortly after Vladimir Putin’s speech on Thursday morning, the price of a barrel of oil exceeded 100 dollars, for the first time in more than seven years, and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange fell by more than 3%.
In a personal and emotional speech in Russian, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had, a few hours before Vladimir Putin spoke on television, called on civil society in Russia to put pressure on its leaders to prevent a “great war in Europe”.
“Do the Russians want war? I would love to know the answer to this question. And that answer depends on you, citizens of the Russian Federation,” he said, accusing Moscow of having deployed 200,000 troops to attack his country and revealing that he had tried to speak, without success, to Vladimir Putin.
Towards the most serious conflict in Europe since 1945?
Ukraine began mobilizing around 40,000 of its reservists on Wednesday, voted a state of emergency and announced that it was the target of a new “massive” cyberattack targeting official websites. The Russian president had hammered just before that Russian interests were “non-negotiable”. On Monday, in an angry speech, he questioned the very legitimacy of Ukraine’s existence, accusing it of being a tool of NATO’s anti-Russian policy of aggression and of orchestrating a “genocide” of Russians in Ukraine, a term he repeated on Thursday morning.
On the international level, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening. The leaders of the 27 countries of the European Union were to meet for a summit on Thursday evening. Many fear that the crisis in Ukraine could lead to the most serious conflict in Europe since 1945. A Russian intervention could result in “up to 5 million additional people displaced”, warned the American ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas -Greenfield.
“Send your troops, your tanks, your planes back to Russia!” launched the diplomat. “Avoid the abyss before it is too late,” she added during the Security Council meeting.
Sanctions against Russia
Washington and its Western allies have taken early sanctions in response to the recognition of Moscow-backed separatists that Kiev has been fighting for eight years, a conflict that has claimed more than 14,000 lives to date. The European Union announced sanctions on Wednesday evening against 23 “high-profile” Russian figures, including the defense minister, military leaders and the boss of Russia Today television, as well as three banks and 351 members of the Duma for their involvement in the recognition of the separatist regions of Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden has meanwhile announced sanctions against the company responsible for operating the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which links Russia to Germany, and which Berlin had already put on hold. Moscow has promised a “strong” and “painful” response to the Americans.
The international sanctions announced so far remain modest compared to those promised in the event of an invasion, and Moscow can boast of having accumulated nearly $640 billion in foreign exchange reserves and $183 billion in a sovereign wealth fund to face.
Consult our file: Boot noises in Ukraine
