“They are shooting – everyone and everything. There’s been nothing like this since 2014-15.“
Up to 600 explosions were recorded in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, occupied by Russian-backed separatists, on Friday morning, 100 more than on Thursday, some involving 152 mm and 122 mm artillery and large mortars, the source said. At least four rounds had been fired from tanks, Reuters reports.
The separatists in eastern Ukraine said on Friday they planned to evacuate the region’s residents to Russia, possibly the catalyst Moscow is looking for to justify an invasion of Ukraine.
Announcing the move on social media, Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said Russia had agreed to provide accommodation for those who leave. Women, children and the elderly should be evacuated first.
There was no immediate commment from Russian officials or from Kyiv. Millions of civilians are believed to live in the two rebel-held regions of eastern Ukraine; most are Russian speakers and many have already been granted Russian citizenship.
The United States said Russia – which says it has started drawing down troops near Ukraine this week – had done the opposite: ramping up the force menacing its neighbour to between 169,000 and 190,000 troops, from 100,000 at the end of January.
“This is the most significant military mobilisation in Europe since the Second World War,” U.S. ambassador Michael Carpenter told a meeting at the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
A diplomatic source with years of direct experience of the conflict described shelling in eastern Ukraine as the most intense since major combat there ended with a 2015 ceasefire.
Moscow said it was closely watching the escalation of shelling, where government troops have faced Moscow-backed rebels since 2014. It described the situation as potentially very dangerous.
- German reinforcements arrive in Lithuania as Ukraine crisis deepens
- No evidence of Russian troop withdrawal on Ukrainian border, says Ukraine’s President Zelensky
- U.S. ready for either “diplomacy or aggression” from Moscow, says Antony Blinken
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