Russia’s National Guard movements indicate that Putin plans a ‘land grab’
Ukrainian foreign minister warns of losses and tells troops to prepare for ‘pain’ and ‘a tough road ahead’
RUSSIAN national guard troops were yesterday driving towards Ukraine’s eastern borders, raising fears that the Kremlin is planning to occupy land against the will of people living there.
More than 100 hundred vehicles, including the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardia) units were spotted in the region of Belgorod after President Vladimir Putin said Russia owned the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Moscow-backed separatists control a third of the land in the eastern Ukrainian regions, while Kyiv controls two thirds of it. Russian troops would face fierce opposition if they tried to take the entire region into Russian control.
Earlier yesterday, Oleksii Reznikov, the Ukrainian defence minister, gave an address to soldiers preparing them for a bloody war. “Our choice is simple – to defend our country, our homes, our families. Nothing has changed for us,” he said.
“Now we shall see more true friends at our side. And the false friends, who prompted us to capitulate for years, will now hide. A tough road lies ahead. There will be losses. The pain, fear and disbelief shall be overcome.”
Nato said on Sunday that Russia had begun moving troops into territory held by separatists. A video posted from Belgorod showed Russian forces, including prisoner transport trucks daubed with mysterious “Z” letters, heading towards Ukraine.
“This is a giant red flag,” wrote Rob Lee, a military analyst from King’s College London, on Twitter. “A strong indication that Rosgvardia troops would take part in any invasion.”
Rather than being used to seize territory, Rosgvardia troops are expected to be used to retain control of captured land. The National Guard of Russia is separate from the Russian Armed Forces. Its mission is to combat terrorism and protect public order. Its troops answer directly to Mr Putin.
The US has warned that Russia has lists of Ukrainian citizens it plans to kill or capture after an invasion, a task that would likely fall to the Rosgvardia.
Speaking in Moscow, Mr Putin yesterday said he had recognised the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk as they are written in the separatists’ “constitution”, extending far beyond the land they militarily control.
“Well, we recognised them. And this means that we recognised all their fundamental documents, including the constitution,” Mr Putin told reporters. “And the constitution spells out the borders within the Donetsk and Lugansk regions at the time when they were part of Ukraine.”
Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry’s spokesman, said that proof of Kyiv carrying out “genocide” in the territory it controls in Donetsk and Luhansk was far too graphic to be printed anywhere.
Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretarygeneral,
warned yesterday that “every indication” showed Russia was still planning “a full-scale attack” on Ukraine.
Speaking in Brussels, Mr Stoltenberg said the West was facing the “most dangerous moment in European security for a generation” as he disclosed that Russia had moved troops into the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.
“Moscow has moved from covert attempts to destabilise Ukraine to overt military action,” he said, adding that a hundred Nato jets had been placed on high alert in response to the “flagrant violation“of international law.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson told the House of Commons yesterday: “The House should be in no doubt that the deployment of these forces in sovereign Ukrainian territory amounts to a renewed invasion of that country.”
At a press conference in Moscow, Mr Putin gave a vague response when asked to confirm the presence of his troops in the Donbas region.
“I didn’t say they will go there straight after our meeting,” he said, adding that any deployments were “impossible to predict: It depends on the situation on the ground.”
Andrei Lugovoi, a Russian lawmaker and primary suspect in the polonium poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, blamed the crisis on Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, calling him a “monkey with a grenade – a toy one because he has nothing better but the West is trying to arm him with a real one”.
Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of Russia’s Communist party, told the Duma he was convinced “the United States will keep trying to strangle us: They are … going to drive Ukrainians out for slaughter”.
In the southern city of Mariupol last night, hundreds of Ukrainians protested against Russia’s territory grab.