Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine’s breakaway regions ordered the evacuation of civilians to Russia on Friday, accusing Ukraine of planning a major military offensive against the two self-declared republics.
The restless eastern part of the country witnessed the worst bombing in years in the past two days.
Each side accuses the other of heavy bombing of civilian areas. Ukrainian officials say there were 60 ceasefire violations on Thursday, many of them by heavy weapons.
The Ukrainian government denies it is planning any offensive in the east, accusing the separatists of launching a “disinformation campaign”.
Officials in the breakaway states of Donetsk and Luhansk said they were organizing the evacuations. Leonid Pasechnik, the highest official of the pro-Russian separatist Luhansk People’s Republic, encouraged the men to take up arms.
“The Russian Federation is ready to offer organized reception and accommodation on its territory to residents of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” said Pasechnik. “Once again, I appeal to all men who are capable of holding weapons in their hands, to defend their land.”
Ukrainians accuse separatists of staging attack on separatist city
On Friday, a vehicle explosion in Donetsk was blamed by Ukrainian and US officials as a staged attack designed to heighten tensions in eastern Ukraine. The video showed a fire in a parking lot and a heavily damaged military vehicle near the headquarters of the self-declared People’s Republic of Donetsk.
Images and videos showed emergency services at the scene and a severely damaged vehicle identified by the CNN like a Russian-made jeep. There is no way to verify what caused the vehicle damage or fire.
“We think this is an act and a provocation,” Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, told CNN on WhatsApp.
A US State Department spokesperson described the operation as a “false flag operation” and said incidents such as a vehicle explosion and calls by separatist leaders to evacuate over the alleged Ukrainian aggression represent “further attempts to hide through lies and misinformation that Russia is the aggressor in this case.”
US President Joe Biden has said there has been an increase in Russian disinformation that could be used as a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine. Speaking at the White House on Friday, Biden said he was “convinced” that Putin had made the decision to invade Ukraine, but added that “diplomacy is always a possibility.”
Both the Ukrainian government and Western officials have warned of the possibility of provocative actions by Russia and the separatist leadership to provide a pretext for a Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Source: CNN Brasil
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