Russian security is non-negotiable: Putin

MOSCOW/ TEHRAN/ KYIV/ WASHINGTON: President Vladimir Putin has insisted that Russia’s interests and security are non-negotiable, amid reports of more Russian troops moving closer towards Ukraine’s borders.

Putin gave a video address, hours after US President Joe Biden warned of “the beginning of a Russian invasion”.

Russia was always “open for direct and honest dialogue”, Putin said, but he had full confidence in the military.

The West has announced a range of sanctions on Russian interests.

“We’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western financing,” Biden said, after Russia’s upper house of parliament authorized the president to send troops into two parts of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

Putin declared on Monday night that Russia had recognized the independence of the so-called people’s republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, tearing up a peace accord with Ukraine.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry urged all its citizens to leave Russia, warning that the “escalating Russia aggression against Ukraine” could limit consular assistance. The military in Kyiv also announced it was immediately calling up all reservists aged 18 to 60, both officers and privates for a maximum of a year.

Meanwhile, in the rebel-held areas, separatist leader Denis Pushilin said military mobilization was gathering pace to counter what he described as Ukrainian aggression, adding that he could also ask Russia for help. Appearing alongside him, a senior official from Russia’s ruling United Russia party said 93,000 people had been evacuated to Russia.

Moscow has also begun evacuating its embassy in Kyiv and has lowered its flag there, reports say.

President Putin’s claim that the military would go to “maintain peace” was derided as nonsense by the West. Rejecting his spurious claim of genocide in eastern Ukraine, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was concerned about “the perversion of the concept of peacekeeping”.

Biden said “to put it simply, Russia just announced that it is carving out a big chunk of Ukraine”.

Despite Putin’s insistence that he was still open to diplomacy, France’s foreign minister and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken both cancelled planned meetings with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

French Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian later said Putin’s aim was to “negate” Ukraine as a sovereign country. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Putin was trying to turn back the wheel of history. But both said they were open to further negotiations with Moscow.

It is not yet clear if any Russian troops have yet crossed the border into Ukraine. However, US satellite imagery has highlighted several new troop and equipment deployments in western Russia, and more than 100 vehicles at an airfield in Belarus near Ukraine’s border.

According to media reports;

Ukraine to declare nationwide state of emergency as fears of war rise.

Kyiv advises nationals to leave Russia and slaps sanctions on hundreds of Russians over Moscow’s recognition of republics in eastern Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country’s interests are “non-negotiable” but that the Kremlin remains open to diplomacy.

Washington says Russia’s moves in Donbas signal the beginning of an “invasion” of Ukraine.

Momentarily, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, has said the country is “not happy” with developments in Ukraine and accused the United States and the Washington-led NATO military alliance of making “provocative moves”.

“In my phone calls with (the) foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine last week I expressed the Islamic Republic’s clear views that NATO and US interference doesn’t help the situation… and that the solution is not war, but diplomatic discussions,” Amirabdollahian said at a joint press conference with his Omani counterpart Sayyid Bard in Tehran.

Iran has not so far directly addressed Putin’s recognition of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine.

Temporarily, the United Kingdom will provide further military support to Ukraine, including lethal defensive weapons, Prime Minister Boris Johnson says.

“In light of the increasingly threatening behavior from Russia and in line with our previous support, the UK will shortly be providing a further package of military support to Ukraine. This will include lethal aid in the form of defensive weapons and non-lethal aid,” Johnson told parliament.

Meanwhile, the United States and its allies sought to step up sanctions pressure on Russia on Wednesday over the deployment of troops in separatist regions of eastern Ukraine, in one of the worst security crises in Europe in decades.

The Ukrainian military said one soldier had been killed and six wounded in increased shelling by pro-Russian separatists using heavy artillery, mortar bombs and Grad rocket systems in the two breakaway regions over the previous 24 hours.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has massed more than 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, according to US estimates, and signed a decree on the deployment of troops in the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk enclaves to “keep the peace”, a justification the United States says is “nonsense”.

Putin on Monday recognized the separatist enclaves in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine which adjoin Russia, deepening Western fears of a major war in Europe by raising the prospect of a full-scale invasion beyond the breakaway areas.

The United States, the European Union, Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan responded with plans to target banks and elites while Germany froze a major gas pipeline project from Russia.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, announcing more measures on Wednesday, said Britain would stop Russia selling sovereign debt in London.

“We’ve been very clear that we’re going to limit Russian access to British markets,” Truss told Sky. “We’re going to stop the Russian government with raising sovereign debt in the United Kingdom.”

Britain on Tuesday announced sanctions on three billionaires with close links to Putin, and five small lenders including Promsvyazbank but, like other US allies, it has said more sanctions would come if Russia launched a full invasion of its neighbour.

“There will be even more tough sanctions on key oligarchs, on key organisations in Russia, limiting Russia’s access to the financial markets, if there is a full scale invasion of Ukraine,” Truss said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov brushed off the threat of sanctions no Tuesday.

“Our European, American, British colleagues will not stop and will not calm down until they have exhausted all their possibilities for the so-called punishment of Russia,” he said.

China said it never thought sanctions were the best way to solve problems, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said. She called for “dialogue and consultation”.

Moscow is calling for security guarantees, including a promise that Ukraine will never join NATO, while the United States and its allies offer Putin confidence-building and arms control steps to defuse the stand-off.

Satellite imagery over the past 24 hours shows several new troop and equipment deployments in western Russia and more than 100 vehicles at a small airfield in southern Belarus, which borders Ukraine, according to US firm Maxar.

Ukraine has started conscripting reservists aged 18-60 following a decree by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the armed forces said. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)