Peter Foster
August 6, 2014
Nato warns of Russian preparations to invade Ukraine
Russia is preparing to send troops into eastern Ukraine under the pretext of mounting a humanitarian mission to save Russian-speaking separatist rebels in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, Nato and US officials have warned.
Russia has now massed 20,000 troops on its border with Ukraine and it is conducting a week of military exercises in a show of force to intimidate Ukrainian government forces who are now pressing the rebels, deepening fears of a Russian intervention.
A sapper works on the site hit by an air strike in Donetsk (AFP/Getty)
"We’re not going to guess what’s on Russia’s mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground - and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine’seastern border,” a Nato spokeswoman, Oana Lungescu, said on Wednesday morning.
Nato is concerned that Moscow could use “the pretext of a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission as an excuse to send troops into Eastern Ukraine”, she added.
The Nato statement came hours after Russia called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday night warning that the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk were “on the brink of a humanitarian disaster” and calling for the international community to intervene.
"The Russian side believes it is necessary to mobilise the international community towards immediate assistance to the residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where the situation is on the brink of humanitarian disaster, and with this in view it will be insistently advancing the initiative on a humanitarian mission for that Ukrainian region," the Russian Foreign ministry in statement to the ITAR-TASS news agency.
Pressure has been building on Mr Putin in recent days with the combination of tougher EU and US sanctions and advances made by Ukrainian government forces who are now closing in on Russian-backed rebel strongholds.
There were reports on Wednesday that the first air strike to hit close to the centre of Donetsk since Ukrainian forces heavily bombarded the airport in May in their bid to halt the insurgency in the industrial east of the country.
City authorities confirmed the strike and showed pictures of a 13ft crater, however the Ukrainian government denied it was responsible. Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for Kiev’s National Security and Defence Council, insisted that Ukraine’s military did not bomb built-up areas.
Three civilians were also killed overnight amid shelling on different suburbs of Donetsk, the city council said. This included two deaths already announced on Tuesday evening.
With EU and US sanctions threatening to bite hard and the Russian economy now the brink of recession according to IMF forecasts, Mr Putin has announced retaliatory sanctions, banning selected food imports from Ukraine, Poland, Romanian and Australia.
Officials and analysts have admitted in recent days that reading Mr Putin’s intentions has become increasingly difficult - if not impossible - for Western governments as the circle tightens around the autocratic Russian president.
Western diplomatic sources have told The Telegraph that there are concerns that Mr Putin has become increasingly “erratic” in recent weeks.
Invasion under the pretext of a humanitarian mission is a “very real option,” a senior US defence department official told the New York Times on Monday.
"And should Putin decide, he could do that with little or no notice. We just don’t know what he’s thinking."
Ian Bremmer, the head of the New York-based Eurasia Group risk consultancy and leading international affairs analyst, warned in a note to clients several weeks ago that the threat of a rebel defeat in Donetsk could precipitate a Russian “peacekeeping” mission.
Asked to estimate the chances of Mr Putin ordering a Russian intervention yesterday, he told The Telegraph, “About one in three”, adding: “That’s still not the preference - he would rather play the long game - but it’s clearly ‘Plan B’ for Putin if it looks like the separatists will otherwise be routed.”
In an apparent show of solidarity, Gen Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s Secretary General, is to visit Kiev on Thursday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said, ostensibly to discuss an upcoming meeting on the Nato-Ukraine “partnership”.
Ukraine is not a member of the 28-nation Nato alliance and is therefore not protected by the mutual defence pact, unlike Poland and the Baltic states which also have large Russian-speaking populations.
Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, visited troops on peacekeeping exercises in central Russia on Wednesday and told them to “expect the unexpected”.
"The world has changed, and it has changed drastically. As you know from previous examples, including in this brigade, peace keeping units can be called upon unexpectedly," he told the soldiers on exercises in the Samara region.
"For that very reason peace keeping units and brigades should be be constantly at battle readiness."
Chuck Hagel, the US defence secretary, said the threat of a Russian intervention in Ukraine was now “a reality” after a meeting with his senior US commanders in Stuttgart.
"When you see the build-up of Russian troops and the sophistication of those troops, the training of those troops, the heavy military equipment that’s being put along that border, of course it’s a reality, it’s a threat, it’s a possibility - absolutely," he said.
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