Russia

Continuing in the cynical mode that he has been using throughout the crisis Putin claimed his plans “don’t include occupation of Ukrainian territory, we are not going to impose anything on anyone by force.” “To anyone who would consider interfering from outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All the relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me,” he said.

The current events in Ukraine "are part of the shifts in global security architecture amidst the transformation of the world order from a unipolar moment to a multipolar system. It is not about Ukraine, in the same way that the cold war was not about the fate of West Berlin", says Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed.

The signing of the an allied cooperation declaration with Russia should not come as a surprise since official Baku has long been maneuvering between Moscow and the West as much as it is possible to preserve its own “red lines” in terms of national interests, writes Fuad Shahbazov.

A meeting between the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday, 24 February) has been cancelled by the American side. It has also been reported that a proposed meeting between President Biden and President Putin is no longer envisaged in the immediate future. Blinken said a meeting now was futile since the US believes that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has already began.

Russia has  started deploying troops to the Ukrainian regions of Lugansk and Donetsk shortly after president Putin signed decrees recognising the two breakaway regions as independent states. There is still uncertainty as to what the Russian endgame is. Parts of Lugansk and Donetsk have been under separatist control since 2014. But if the Russian forces try to move beyond these enclaves to territory controlled by the Ukrainian army some very heavy fighting is to be expected. There has been widespread international condemnation of Russia's action. The UN Security Council met in emergency session early on Tuesday morning. France, US and UK strongly condemned the Russian action. Several countries are expected to impose sanctions.

Russia has recognised the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent countries and signed friendship and co-operation agreements with them. Just before, Russian president Vladimir Putin in a long and agitated television address to the nation appeared to question the very existence of the Ukrainian state, lambasted the west for its policy towards Russia, accused the Ukrainian government of genocide in the Donbass region and announced the recognition of the two separatist entities.

The  sight of refugees on their own continent amid the rumblings of war unsettles Europeans, many of who thought these were things of the past. Within the EU, a younger generation brought up in an era of peace and relative prosperity is struggling to understand the news coming out of Ukraine, and the human tragedy that is about to unfold unless there is some last minute diplomatic breakthrough. Indeed, for Europeans, Ukraine is the wake-up call they had hoped they would never get again.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Saturday ordered the start of strategic nuclear exercises involving launches of ballistic missiles. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, took part in military exercises alongside Putin from a situation centre in the Kremlin. There is intense speculation that Russia will launch an attack against Ukraine in the next days. Speaking to the media in Lithuania on Saturday, U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said Russian forces were beginning to "uncoil and move closer" to the border with Ukraine.