The hope of a massive Russian military withdrawal from the Ukrainian border has fizzled, despite Russian announcements indicating, on Friday February 18, “the return of tanks to their permanent bases”. Nearly 150,000 Russian soldiers remain available for a possible military operation. And, near the demarcation line between Ukraine and the two “self-proclaimed republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, Thursday was particularly tense.
In the village of Stanytsia Louhanska, the children were about to go for a walk when a shell fell on the school. None were hit, but three adults were injured. Kiev has incriminated the pro-Russian separatists, who accused the Ukrainian forces of increasing the bombardments with heavy weapons to provoke an escalation. Along the 470 kilometers of the line of contact, where some 500,000 people live, around fifteen municipalities were hit by gunfire in a single day, according to the humanitarian NGO Proliska. So far, only three houses have been affected since the beginning of February.
“It’s really an escalation. There hadn’t been such intensive shooting since 2014-2015, affirms to World Evgeniy Kapline, the director and founder of Proliska, in Kharkiv (East). The residents are panicked. We receive a strong demand for psychological help, and materials to repair the houses. And the shelling continues while we talk. At the moment, 26 rockets have just fallen on another village”, he continues, his eyes riveted on his screen, between two calls. The shelling did not cause any deaths, but two soldiers and five civilians were injured, according to Kiev. “People are used to it, they take refuge in basements, continues Mr. Kapline. But suddenly, they pile up and become contaminated with Covid-19 [seuls 35 % des Ukrainiens sont vaccinés]. »
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky immediately denounced a ” provocation “. On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin had once again maintained, against all evidence, that a “genocide” of the Russian-speaking minority was underway in the Donbass and that a “majority of the Russian population” supported the self-proclaimed republics, as if seeking to prepare its public opinion for a new coup, after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. “Thursday’s violence is a surprise because the ceasefire, reaffirmed on December 22, seemed to be holding firm on the ground despite the growing political tensions all around”, notes a diplomat involved in the contact group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The group is due to meet urgently on Friday at the request of the Ukrainian government, according to the same source.
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