With war drawing closer, rebels ask Russia for military help

The Kremlin said rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine asked Russia for military assistance Wednesday to help fend off Ukrainian “aggression,” an announcement that immediately fuelled fears that Moscow was offering up a pretext for war, just as the West had warned about.

In an emotional late-night address to his nation, the Ukrainian president rejected Moscow's claims that his country poses a threat to Russia and lamented that a Russian invasion would cost tens of thousands of lives. “The people of Ukraine and the government of Ukraine want peace,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Russian, hours after declaring a nationwide state of emergency. But if an attack threatens lives and freedom, "we will fight back.”

Zelenskyy said he tried to call Russian President Vladimir Putin late Wednesday, but the Kremlin remained silent.

Anxiety about an imminent Russian offensive against its neighbour soared after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised the separatist regions' independence, and the West responded with sanctions.

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the rebel chiefs wrote to Putin, pleading with him to intervene after Ukrainian shelling caused civilian deaths and crippled vital infrastructure.

The separatists' appeal comes after Putin sanctioned the deployment of troops to the rebel territories to help “maintain peace” and the parliament granted him permission to use military force outside the country.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the separatists' request for Russian help was an example of the sort of “false-flag” operation that the US and its allies have expected Moscow to use as a pretence for war. "So we'll continue to call out what we see as false-flag operations or efforts to spread misinformation about what the actual status is on the ground,” she said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the country requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council. He called the separatists' request “a further escalation of the security situation.”

In Ukraine, lawmakers approved President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's decree that imposes the state of emergency for 30 days starting Thursday. The measure allows authorities to impose curfews and restrictions on movement, block rallies and ban political parties and organizations “in the interests of national security and public order.”

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The action reflected increasing concern among Ukrainian authorities after weeks of trying to project calm. The Foreign Ministry advised against travel to Russia and recommended that any Ukrainians who are there leave immediately. “For a long time, we refrained from declaring a state of emergency... but today the situation has become more complicated,“ National Security and Defense Council head Oleksiy Danilov told parliament, emphasising that Moscow's efforts to destabilise Ukraine represented the main threat.

Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly voiced concern that pro-Russian groups inside the country could try to destabilize it, including a pro-Moscow political party represented in parliament.

The introduction of the state of emergency follows Putin's move Monday to recognize the independence of rebel regions in eastern Ukraine, where a nearly eight-year conflict has killed over 14,000 people.

Russia on Wednesday evacuated its embassy in Kyiv as hopes for a diplomatic way out of a new, potentially devastating war in Europe waned. The US and key European allies accused Moscow of crossing a red line Tuesday in rolling over Ukraine's border into a separatist eastern region known as the Donbas, with some calling it an invasion.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Russian force of more than 150,000 troops arrayed along Ukraine's borders is in an advanced state of readiness. “They are ready to go right now,” Kirby said.

The latest images released by the Maxar satellite image company show Russian troops and military equipment deployed within 10 miles of the Ukrainian border and less than 50 miles from Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv.

In response to Russia's action, President Joe Biden allowed sanctions to move forward against the company that built the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and against the company's CEO. “Today, I have directed my administration to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers,” Biden said in a statement. “As I have made clear, we will not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate.”

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Germany said Tuesday it was indefinitely suspending the project, after Biden charged that Putin had launched “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine” by sending troops into the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine. The pipeline is complete but has not yet begun operating.

Biden waived sanctions last year against Nord Stream 2 AG, when the project was almost completed, in return for an agreement from Germany to take action against Russia if it used gas as a weapon or attacked Ukraine.

Putin said Tuesday he hadn't yet sent any Russian troops into the rebel regions contrary to Western claims, and Donetsk rebel leader Denis Pushilin insisted Wednesday there were no Russian troops in the region even though a local council member claimed the previous day they had moved in.

Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said a wave of denial-of-service attacks targeted official websites and some banks Wednesday. The attack knocked offline the sites of the parliament, cabinet and Foreign Ministry and caused interruptions or delays to the sites of the defence and interior ministry, which controls the police.

Many of the same sites were similarly knocked offline in attacks last week that the US and UK governments quickly blamed on Russia's GRU military intelligence agency. Wednesday's attacks appeared to have less impact than the earlier onslaught, with targeted sites soon reachable again.

In other developments, Kyiv recalled its ambassador to Russia and considered breaking all diplomatic ties with Moscow; dozens of nations further squeezed Russian oligarchs and banks out of international markets; the US repositioned additional troops to NATO's eastern flank bordering Russia, and the top US diplomat cancelled a meeting with his Russian counterpart.

Already, the threat of war has shredded Ukraine's economy and raised the spectre of massive casualties, energy shortages across Europe and global economic chaos.

Even as the conflict took a new, dangerous turn, leaders warned it could still get worse. Putin has yet to unleash the force of the 150,000 troops massed on three sides of Ukraine, while Biden held back on even tougher sanctions that could cause economic turmoil for Russia but said they would go ahead if there is further aggression.

European Union sanctions against Russia took effect, targeting several companies along with 351 Russian lawmakers, who voted for a motion urging Putin to recognize the rebel regions, and 27 senior government officials, business executives and top military officers.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has shrugged off the sanctions, saying that “Russia has proven that, with all the costs of the sanctions, it is able to minimize the damage.”

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In Ukraine's east, violence spiked again. One Ukrainian soldier was killed and six more were injured after rebel shelling, the Ukrainian military said. Separatist officials reported several explosions on their territory overnight and three civilian deaths.

Facing a barrage of criticism at the 193-member United Nations General Assembly, Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia warned Ukraine that Russia will monitor the cease-fire in the east and emphasised that “no one intends to go softly, softly with any violators.”

“A new military adventure” by Kyiv “might cost the whole of Ukraine very dearly,” he warned ominously.

After weeks of rising tensions, Putin's steps this week dramatically raised the stakes. He recognised the independence of those separatist regions, a move he said extends even to the large parts of the territories now held by Ukrainian forces, and had parliament grant him authority to use military force outside the country.

Putin laid out three conditions that he said could end the stand-off, urging Kyiv to recognise Russia's sovereignty over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, to renounce its bid to join NATO and to partially demilitarize. Ukraine long has rejected such demands.

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