Putin Orders Troops into Ukraine on ‘Peacekeeping Mission’
Vladimir Putin will recognise Ukraine’s eastern regions as independent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops to enter Ukraine on a ‘peacekeeping mission’ after he officially recognised the country’s eastern regions as independent states - a move that will pave the way for a long-feared Russian invasion of Kiev.
The Russian President ordered his defence ministry to despatch Russian troops to eastern Ukraine’s two separatist regions - the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic - according to a decree signed by Putin recognising their independence.
Following days of Moscow staging what are widely believed to be false flag attacks on Ukrainian soil and blaming them on Kiev, Mr Putin said during a televised speech that Ukraine faces more ‘bloodshed’ if the country does not end military operations against pro-Moscow rebels in the eastern regions.
Recognising the rebel regions’ independence effectively shatters the Minsk peace agreements and opens the door for Russia to sign treaties with the ‘states’ and openly send troops and weapons there to defend them against Ukrainian ‘threats’.
The move fuels further tension with the West and narrows the diplomatic options available to avoid war, since it is an explicit rejection of a seven-year-old ceasefire mediated by France and Germany, still touted as the framework for any future negotiations on the wider crisis.
The Kremlin said that upon hearing that Mr Putin will sign the order to recognise the independence of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had ‘expressed disappointment’ over the decision in phone calls with the Russian President.
Mr Johnson said Putin’s decision to recognise the two separatist Ukrainian republics was in breach of international law and an ‘ill omen’ and ‘dark sign’ that things are moving in the wrong while UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the move would not go ‘unpunished’ as she announced new sanctions on Russia.
The Prime Minister will chair a Cobra meeting on Tuesday morning to discuss the latest developments in Ukraine and agree on a ‘significant package of sanctions’ on Moscow.
The EU’s top officials also said they will impose sanctions, while the U.S. has ordered sanctions which will prohibit new investment, trade and financing in the two separatist regions of Ukraine recognised by Mr Putin.
All eyes will now turn to Ukraine’s border regions for evidence that Russian troops have crossed, after videos published earlier in the day showed tanks and armoured vehicles in ‘battle formations’ some of them less than three miles from the frontier.