Moscow’s acting emergencies minister said Wednesday that over 96,000 refugees from the Donbas have crossed the border into Russia since evacuation began, Russia’s Tass news agency reported.
“As of 06:00 Moscow time, the Russian border was crossed by more than 96,000 people,” minister Alexander Chupriyan said. He said there are currently 230 temporary accommodation stations for the refugees in Russia.
The leaders of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk republics in the Donbas ordered the evacuation of civilians on February 18th and warned Ukraine was preparing an offensive. Since then, ceasefire violations in the conflict zone in the Donbas have spiked.
Both sides blame the other for the escalation in fighting. The spike in violence appeared to be a major factor in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize the independence of the DPR and LPR.
The separatists on Wednesday formally asked Putin to help “repel” the Ukrainian army.
Either Biden’s Anthony Blinken is right & ‘Russia will invade beyond the line of control SOON or Russia’s fears that Ukrainian forces will attack the newly Russian recognized ‘seperatist’ Republics beyond the line of control. Both can’t be correct.
It’s not going to matter much – especially to Ukraine – since Russia has made the decision. Everyone – including this site – will call it an “invasion”. But there are two kinds of “invasion” 1) invasion for occupation, and 2) invasion for suppression of a threat. Ukraine is the latter. Iraq was the former, even though a bogus “threat” of “WMDs” was invented to “justify” it. But the western MSM won’t see the difference, and Biden will be hailed as having been “right” about a “Russian invasion.” But Russia is already resigned to that, as Putin said the sanctions would be imposed regardless of what he did.
I go to bed early and have only been up for a couple of hours at the moment, but so far I haven’t come across any evidence of an “invasion” in the sense of Russian ground troops taking territory that is undisputedly “Ukrainian.”
All I’m seeing is a “special military operation” in the LPR/DPR, with the only action in Ukraine proper being air and/or missile strikes against Ukrainian military assets to prevent them from being brought into action in the LPR/DPR theater.
Am I missing the stories about Russian tanks grinding toward Kiev, Russian airborne troops dropping into Lviv, etc.?
Well, responding 10 hours later, so I guess you’ve seen what’s up by now. 🙂 I just got up at 2PM so I have to play catch up from where I was at 5AM this morning.
Kiev forces have been attacking those areas for eight years and killed thousands of civilians, something the Western press doesn’t report on.
Well, it has now. As I told a fellow prepper today, “grab your popcorn and check your bug out bag.”
I would like to know, in what way are Russia’s actions different in protecting the two breakaway areas from Kiev, to the actions of US/UK and others when they attacked Serbia to protect Kosovo?