Ukraine Live Updates: U.S. Prepares Response as Putin Orders Forces to Separatist Enclaves

 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/22/world/russia-ukraine

 

Ukraine Live Updates: U.S. Prepares Response as Putin Orders Forces to Separatist Enclaves

 

Washington and its allies called the Kremlin’s recognition of two separatist regions, and the deployment of Russian troops there, a blunt defiance of international law that risks war.

 

Here’s what you need to know:

‘There will be losses’: Ukraine braces for possible conflict.

In eastern Ukraine, some aren’t waiting around to see Putin’s next move.

The U.S. and other nations blast Russia at an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting.

Ukraine’s president says his country is committed to peace but ‘ready for everything.’

The conflict’s economic consequences are likely to threaten global growth.

China withholds support for Putin’s moves, calling for respect for territorial integrity.

U.S. diplomatic staff relocate from Ukraine to Poland.

‘There will be losses’: Ukraine braces for possible conflict.

 

With the dispatch of armed forces by Russia and the promise of sanctions by the United States, the Ukraine conflict entered a perilous new chapter on Tuesday as the path to a diplomatic solution quickly narrowed.

 

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has been unsparing in terms of what lies ahead, calling Ukraine little more than a “puppet” of the United States, its leaders solely responsible for whatever “bloodshed” may come next. Mr. Putin has also raised the specter of fighting after deploying troops to the two breakaway regions of Ukraine that Russia just recognized.

 

“As for those who captured and are holding on to power in Kyiv,” he said, referring to the Ukrainian capital, “we demand that they immediately cease military action.”

 

Ukraine’s leaders braced for the possibility of an intense fight to defend their territory, offering a somber message to troops on Tuesday. “Ahead will be a difficult trial,” the defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, said in a statement released by the military. “There will be losses. You will have to go through pain and overcome fear and despondency.”

 

White House officials have said that President Biden will impose economic sanctions on the separatist regions of Ukraine, and that a further Western response will be announced on Tuesday. By then, several of Mr. Biden’s aides said, they already expected to see Russian forces rolling over the border into Ukraine, crossing the line that Mr. Biden had set for imposing “swift and severe” sanctions on Moscow.

 

In recent weeks, some 150,000 to 190,000 Russian troops, by Western estimates, have gradually drawn a noose around their neighbor, and the United States has warned repeatedly that the question about a Russian invasion was not if but when.

 

Video clips of military convoys moving through the separatist territories were circulating on social media on Tuesday, but there was no immediate official confirmation that these were Russian troops rather than the forces of Russian-backed separatists.

 

On the Ukrainian side, similarly unconfirmed reports on social media appeared to show the Ukrainian Army moving heavy weaponry, such as self-propelled artillery guns and tanks, toward the front line with the separatist enclaves.

 

The United States and its allies swiftly condemned Russia’s actions on Monday to recognize the separatist regions, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics created after Russia fomented a separatist war in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

 

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Twitter that “Russia’s move to recognize the ‘independence’ of so-called republics controlled by its own proxies is a predictable, shameful act.” He added that he had told Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, that the United States condemned the actions in the “strongest possible terms.”

 

At an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting late Monday, several nations rebuked Russia, saying that the move amounted to a violation of the United Nations Charter and an attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty. Although the meeting ended with no action taken, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said that council members had “sent a unified message — that Russia should not start war.”

 

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in a televised statement on Monday, urged Ukraine’s allies to take action immediately and called for the Ukrainian people to remain calm.

 

“We are on our own land,” he said. “We are not afraid of anything or anyone.”

 

On Tuesday, Mr. Reznikov, the defense minister, reiterated the country’s posture, saying that the Kremlin had recognized not the two breakaway regions, but rather “its own aggression against” Ukraine.

 

“We are ready and able to defend ourselves and our sovereignty,” he said on Twitter. “World cannot be silent. Sanctions? Another brick in the wall? New Berlin Wall?”

 

— Anton Troianovski, Valerie Hopkins, Andrew E. Kramer and Michael Schwirtz

 

In eastern Ukraine, some aren’t waiting around to see Putin’s next move.

 

SEVERODONETSK, Ukraine — As dawn broke on Tuesday in eastern Ukraine through an icy blue, overcast sky, Viktoria Gudyatskaya, 41, was boarding a train with her daughter, not waiting to learn how the Russian government’s recognition of two separatist regions, announced by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia the night before, might play out militarily.

 

“It felt like he took a decisive step,” said Mr. Gudyatskaya, who had intended to leave anyway because of an escalation in fighting in the east but saw Mr. Putin’s speech as a final argument for getting out with her daughter, Svetlana, who is 14.

 

Two other families, lugging suitcases, some with toddlers on hips, boarded the early-morning westbound train, saying they were escaping possible violence. Ms. Gudyatskaya said she would live with a brother in Kyiv “until the situation clears up.”

 

Mr. Putin’s speech left Ukrainians, and Western governments, guessing as to what might come next. In an address that was partly a history lesson, Mr. Putin asserted that Ukraine had been “created by Russia” and should be part of it today, suggesting a claim to the entire country.

 

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, delivered a televised speech at 2 a.m. to urge calm, saying that the country would “keep a cool head” in the crisis. But he also said that it would not yield territory.

 

Ms. Gudyatskaya, who stood on the train platform in the chilly morning air a few hours later, with just one suitcase and unsure when she might return home, said she blamed Mr. Putin for her predicament.

 

“If they had another leader, they wouldn’t do this,” she said of the Russians. “The Russian people are fine.”

 

Already, the escalating fighting along the front line between Ukrainian government forces and the two enclaves, which began on Thursday, has grown close to her home. “We can hear it now through our closed windows,” she said of artillery shelling.

 

Svetlana, her daughter, who toted a backpack with rainbow-hued straps and said she wanted to become either a car mechanic or a nurse, said she wasn’t as worried as her mother.

 

“Everything is fine,” she said as she boarded the train. “Our guys will win. We will defeat Russia and Russia will fall apart.”

 

Ms. Gudyatskaya shook her head. “Faith is always good, Sveta,” she said. “But I am worried.”

 

— Andrew E. Kramer

 

Russia’s Actions Are Condemned at U.N. Security Council Meeting

 

The unusual late-evening meeting of the Council was requested by Ukraine after President Vladimir V. Putin ordered troops into the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, escalating a conflict that Western officials warn could explode into one of the biggest armed clashes in Europe since World War II. The U.N. meeting quickly turned into a diplomatic rebuke of Russia’s actions, which were condemned as a violation of the United Nations Charter and the sanctity of national borders.

 

“Russia’s clear attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is unprovoked,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American ambassador to the United Nations, told fellow diplomats.

 

She ridiculed Mr. Putin’s assertion that Russian forces had been deployed as peacekeepers and called his attempt to recreate the Russian empire an antiquated throwback.

 

“Putin wants the world to travel back in time. To a time before the United Nations. To a time when empires ruled the world,” she said. “But the rest of the world has moved forward. It is not 1919. It is 2022.”

 

The representatives of France and Britain issued similar denunciations. “Russia is choosing the path of confrontation,” said France’s ambassador, Nicolas de Rivière. Britain’s ambassador, Barbara Woodward, said: “Russia has brought us to the brink. We urge Russia to step back.”

 

Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia of Russia, who is president of the council for February and was obliged to schedule the meeting, categorically rejected any criticism.

 

He framed his country’s actions as help for the Russian-speaking inhabitants of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, known as the Donbas, which have been engaged in a low-level war with Ukraine since 2014. Mr. Nebenzia described them as victims of Ukrainian attacks and subterfuge.

 

“We remain open to diplomacy,” Mr. Nebenzia said. “However, allowing a new blood bath in Donbas is something we’re not prepared to do.”

 

Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya of Ukraine, who was invited to speak at the meeting although his country is not a member, said he was reluctant to doff his face mask — not because of Covid-19, “but because of the virus that has so far no vaccine — the virus that is spread by the Kremlin.”

 

The meeting adjourned after 90 minutes, with no action taken. Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said afterward that council members had “sent a unified message — that Russia should not start war.”

 

The request for the meeting was announced by the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, who called on member states “to immediately hold consultations under article 6 of the Budapest memorandum to discuss urgent actions aimed at de-escalation, as well as practical steps to guarantee the security of Ukraine.”

 

The Budapest Memorandum refers to a 1994 agreement under which Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, former Soviet republics, gave up their stockpiles of Russian nuclear weapons and joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in exchange for security guarantees. The efficacy of the agreement has long been called into question. Ukraine and Western nations have said Russia grossly violated the agreement by seizing Crimea.

 

— Rick Gladstone

 

Ukraine’s president says his country is committed to peace but ‘ready for everything.’

 

In a speech to the nation early Tuesday morning, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that his country was “not afraid of anything” and called for international support as President Vladimir V. Putin ordered Russian military forces to deploy to two breakaway regions in Ukraine’s east.

 

Here are highlights of Mr. Zelensky’s comments:

 

“We and our state do not have time for long lectures on history,” he said, an apparent reference to assertions by Mr. Putin on Monday that Ukrainian statehood was a historical fiction. “I will not talk about the past. I will tell about realities and the future. Ukraine is behind me within its internationally recognized borders. And it will remain so. Despite any statements and actions of the Russian Federation.”

 

“We remain calm and confident. I want to thank all our citizens for this. You prove once again that Ukrainians are a smart and wise nation. And in spite of everything — keeps a cool head, reacts calmly, balanced, as adults. We have been ready for everything for a long time.”

 

“Ukraine unequivocally qualifies the recent actions of the Russian Federation as a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state. All responsibility for the consequences of these decisions lies with Russia’s political leadership.”

 

“We expect clear support steps and effective support steps from our partners. It is very important to see now who is our true friend and partner.”

 

“There is currently no reason for chaotic action. We will do everything to keep it that way in the future. We are committed to a peaceful and diplomatic path.”

 

“We are on our own land. We are not afraid of anything or anyone,” Mr. Zelensky said in closing comments that referenced Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. “We owe nothing to anyone and we will not give anything to anyone, and we are sure of that, because now is not February 2014, but February 2022 — another country, another army, one goal: peace, peace in Ukraine.”

 

— Austin Ramzy and Maria Varenikova

 

The conflict’s economic consequences are likely to threaten global growth.

 

The looming danger of a war on the European Union’s border means yet another uncertainty for a global economy that has already been hurt by the pandemic, supply chain chokeholds and inflation.

 

The Kremlin ordered Russian troops into separatist territories of Ukraine late Monday, but the tension had already taken a toll, sending stock prices down and energy prices up. Actual fighting could cause food and energy costs to rise, worsen inflation fears and scare off investors, a combination that would threaten global growth.

 

Europe gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas and 25 percent of its oil from Russia and is likely to be confronted with sharp rises in already-climbing heating and gas bills. Russia is also the world’s largest supplier of wheat, and together with Ukraine, accounts for nearly a quarter of total global exports.

 

Ukraine sends more than 40 percent of its wheat and corn exports to the Middle East or Africa, where there are worries that further food shortages and price increases could stoke social unrest.

 

The economic consequences of the conflict are likely to be most keenly felt by the world’s most vulnerable.

 

“Poorer people spend a higher share of incomes on food and heating,” said Ian Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at Oxford University.

 

— Patricia Cohen, Jack Ewing and Alexandra Stevenson