Thousands Leave Donbas for Russia’s Rostov: Ukraine Update

(Bloomberg) — Russia and Belarus said massive joint military drills will not end Feb. 20 as planned. President Joe Biden convened a National Security Council meeting on Ukraine for Sunday. With tensions running high over Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine, cease-fire monitors along the line dividing Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists reported a surge in violations.

European countries stepped up warnings, urging citizens to leave Ukraine. Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin are expected to talk on Sunday. Russia has repeatedly denied it plans an invasion of Ukraine and calls such claims propaganda and “hysteria.” 

Russia and Belarus will extend their biggest joint military drills in years due to escalating tensions in Donbas, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Telegram. Russia’s Tass also reported the extension. 

Previously, Russia had said it would return troops to their bases after the training exercises, which were scheduled to finish on Sunday. 

The allies have been conducting the drills since Feb. 10 near the border with Ukraine as well as close to Poland and Lithuania, both NATO members.

Russia will open criminal cases over reports of civilian casualties following an alleged attack by the Ukrainian army on the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, the country’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Tass news agency earlier reported that two civilians died in the attack near the Russian border, citing a statement from the Luhansk separatists. Ukraine’s military said Russian-backed forces had increased shelling over the last day and two of its soldiers died.

Each side has blamed the other for a surge in cease-fire violations along the line of contact in recent days.

Nils Schmid, a German lawmaker in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic party, called for NATO to consider a “massive increase” of its military presence in eastern Europe if Russia were to attack Ukraine.

Commitments from 1997 to limit troops in the region would need to be reevaluated if Vladimir Putin “breaks the rules,” he said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag. Scholz’s party has often been seen as soft on Russia, with a history of pushing for engagement with the Kremlin.

Over 40,000 people leaving Donbas in Ukraine have arrived in Russian region of Rostov, Tass news service reported, citing the acting head of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry Alexander Chupriyan. 

Separatists in the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics have called on civilians to leave, raising fears of an escalation in fighting. Officials in Kyiv say they have no intention of using force in the areas. Each side has blamed the other for a surge in cease-fire violations along the line of contact in recent days. 

Russia plans “the biggest war in Europe since 1945,” U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the BBC.   

“All the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun,” Johnson told BBC correspondent Sophie Raworth from the Munich Security Conference. “I’m afraid that that is what the evidence points to, there’s no burnishing it.”

Johnson indicated that Britain could introduce more far-reaching sanctions against Moscow. The full interview will be broadcast at 10 a.m. CET.  

U.S. President Joe Biden will convene a meeting on Ukraine with his top security advisers on Sunday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.  

The National Security Council meeting follows Biden’s assessment on Friday that, based on U.S. intelligence, Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to attack Ukraine and that an invasion, including a strike on Kyiv, could come within days. 

Biden’s national security team is updating the president regularly about events on the ground and “reaffirmed that Russia could launch an attack against Ukraine at any time,” Psaki said in a statement.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed “possible ways of immediate de-escalation” of the Ukraine crisis and a “political-diplomatic settlement” during a call on Saturday.  

The Ukrainian leader didn’t elaborate on his comments in a Twitter post. Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin are due to speak at 11 a.m. CET on Sunday.  

Cease-fire monitors on Ukraine’s so-called line of conflict said fighting surged on Friday, when separatist leaders in the self-declared Donetsk and Lugansk republics told women and children to leave and alleged a Ukrainian assault to take the territory was imminent.

Cease-fire violations rose to 591 from 222 the previous day in the Donetsk sector, and to 975 from 648 in the Lugansk region, according to a daily report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Most were more explosions rather than small arms violations, the report said. There were almost four times as many cease-fire violations across the region on Friday as during the previous seven days combined.

Ukraine says separatist leaders are increasing the rate of fire, including on civilian targets, to force a response and create a rationale for an invasion. Donbas leaders say they’re responding to fire from the Ukrainian side.

After a recent jump in cease-fire violations along the contact line in eastern Ukraine, the foreign ministers of Group of Seven countries warned that actions by separatists could cause the situation to deteriorate further. 

“We are concerned that staged incidents could be used as a pretext for possible military escalation,” they said in a joint statement, calling on Russia to use its influence over the self-proclaimed republics to exercise restraint.  

They added that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe needs to be allowed to continue monitor the situation “without restrictions.” 

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he doesn’t know what Vladimir Putin wants from Ukraine and that’s why he’s seeking a meeting with him — an overture that the Russian leader has so far rebuffed. 

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Zelenskiy also proposed a summit of the UN Security Council, plus Ukraine, Germany and Turkey, to work out new security guarantees for Ukraine. “Guarantees for now, while we are not a member of the [NATO] defense alliance,” he said. Russia, along with the U.K., the U.S., China and France has a permanent seat on the UNSC.  

As Zelenskiy spoke, his party’s lawmakers, Ukrainian military officials and journalists at the contact line with Russia-backed separatists were shelled and took cover in a bomb shelter. 

Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed Saturday as separatists violated cease-fire arrangements for the area 70 times since midnight, the Defense Ministry said. Such violations on both sides have persisted over the eight-year conflict but have jumped dramatically in recent days. 

Zelenskiy spoke with World Bank President David Malpass on the role the bank plays “in the stability of the Ukrainian financial sector.”  

Germany, Austria and France are among the European countries that have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible, repeating or ramping up warnings from a week ago.  

Austria’s Foreign Ministry urged its citizens to depart most of Ukraine due to the unpredictable security outlook. Germany intensified its warning, saying a military confrontation is possible at any time.

Lufthansa said Saturday it’s suspending flights into and out of Kyiv from Feb. 21 to Feb. 28 “ Austrian Airlines plans to halt flights to Kyiv and Odessa through February. 

The carriers still offer departures to Lviv, where countries including the U.K. have temporarily relocated their embassies. 

NATO’s Ukraine office is the latest to decamp to city near the Polish border, and some staff have also returned to Brussels, an alliance official said, adding that the office remains operational.