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Business News/ Home Page / NATO sees Ukraine incursion risk after Russian troop buildup
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NATO sees Ukraine incursion risk after Russian troop buildup

Any incursion would be under the guise of a peacekeeping operation, says Poland’s foreign minister

A file photo of military personnel, believed to be Russian servicemen, march outside the territory of a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye outside Simferopol in March 2014. Photo: Reuters (Reuters)Premium
A file photo of military personnel, believed to be Russian servicemen, march outside the territory of a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye outside Simferopol in March 2014. Photo: Reuters (Reuters)

Brussels/Kiev: NATO said there’s a risk of Russia sending troops into Ukraine under the pretext of a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission after President Vladimir Putin massed soldiers on his country’s western border.

We’re not going to guess what’s on Russia’s mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground — and that is of great concern, Oana Lungescu, a spokeswoman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said by e-mail on Wednesday. The latest Russian military buildup further escalates the situation and undermines efforts aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis. This is a dangerous situation.

The standoff over Ukraine is escalating in the wake of the US and the European Union hitting Russia with the toughest sanctions yet, sparking Putin to order economic retaliation. In Ukraine’s easternmost regions, government troops are pressing ahead with an offensive that’s pegged back pro-Russian insurgents and prompted the government in Kiev to say on Tuesday that victory was near.

Warnings of the threat of invasion are intensifying after reports that Russia has massed forces on its neighbour’s border in the biggest military buildup since troops were withdrawn from the area in May.

‘Fig leaf’

Putin will likely aim at a fig leaf policy with an incursion under the guise of a peacekeeping operation, which would put Russian military boots on the ground, Amanda Paul, an analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, said by e-mail. As other conflicts in the former Soviet Union have shown, once there is a Russian military presence it usually never leaves but gets larger and plays a very unproductive role.

The escalation is also rattling global markets. US stock- index futures declined, after the index closed at a two-month low. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures expiring next month fell 0.3% to 1,907.6 at 11:19 am in London, erasing earlier gains of as much as 0.3%. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped 1.5% to 327.23 at 11:27 am in London, erasing the benchmark’s 6.5% rally from the beginning of this year through its 10 June high.

Poland, a NATO member that borders Ukraine and has been among the EU nations seeking the toughest response to the Kremlin’s policy over Ukraine, earlier on Wednesday said the risk of a Russian invasion has increased.

Rising risk

Poland has reason to believe that the risk of an incursion is greater than a few days ago, Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters in Warsaw on Wednesday. His foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, on Tuesday said that any incursion would be under the guise of a peacekeeping operation. Russia on Tuesday called for a humanitarian mission to eastern Ukraine, which is on the verge of a catastrophe, the foreign ministry in Moscow said on its website.

Ukraine considers Russia’s proposal of humanitarian aid to be cynical, blaming its neighbor for not allowing the military conflict to end, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the country’s defense and security council, told reporters in Kiev today.

Russia has deployed 45,000 soldiers, 160 tanks and as many as 1,360 armored vehicles, Andriy Lysenko, a Ukrainian military spokesman, told reporters in Kiev on Tuesday. There are also 192 Russian warplanes and 137 military helicopters, as well as artillery systems and multiple rocket launchers, he said.

While estimates cited by Ukraine include about 20,000 Russian forces in Crimea, those by the US and NATO don’t.

‘Key metric’

On that basis, Rear Admiral John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday that Russia still has north of 10,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, and NATO deputy secretary general Alexander Vershbow said in a posting on Twitter that the number is about 20,000.

The numbers aren’t the key metric here, Kirby said. What matters is that they continue to reinforce these units, that they are very capable and very ready across what we call combined arms capabilities -- armor, artillery, air defense, special forces, and that they are closer to the border than they were in the spring.

Even so, there’s reason to be skeptical about Russia’s willingness to go into a military conflict, according to Stefan Meister, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.

‘No signs’

I cannot believe Russia would attack Ukraine, which would worsen the situation further and deepen the conflict with the West, Meister said by phone on Wednesday. I don’t see signs for invasion, in fact, Russia has tried to bring in some distance from the separatists.

Ukraine expressed alarm about the new deployment of Russian forces as it pressed an offensive against pro-Russian separatists. There’s active combat taking place on the outskirts of Donetsk, with two civilians killed, the city council said on its website last night.

Ukrainian forces were attacked by Russian troops over the border, shelling them for four hours yesterday in the Luhansk region, Lysenko said. Eighteen Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 54 wounded in the last 24 hours, during which time they engaged the rebels in 25 firefights, Lysenko said.

Three civilians were killed amid overnight shelling in the city of 1 million, which also damaged infrastructure and residential buildings, the Donetsk city council said on its website on Wednesday.

Worsening situation

The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is steadily worsening, John Ging, director of humanitarian operations for the United Nations, said at an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday in New York. He said the fighting has killed at least 1,367 people — both civilians and combatants — and wounded 4,087 since mid-April.

About 3.9 million people live in areas directly affected by violence and face imminent security threats, while more than 1,000 people flee conflict zones every day, said Ging, who cited a Russian estimate that 740,000 Ukrainians have crossed into Russia since the beginning of the year.

The UN’s refugee agency estimates the number of internally displaced Ukrainians at more than 117,000, according to a statement on its website on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s armed forces are pushing ahead with their campaign after the US and the EU increased pressure on Putin over his backing of the rebels with an expansion of sanctions. Last month’s downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which the US says was probably caused by a missile fired by the insurgents, has helped harden attitudes against Russia. The rebels and Putin’s government blame Ukrainian forces.

‘Emergency measures’

While Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the conflict, the US and its EU allies say Putin is supplying the insurgents with weapons, manpower and financing and say he could stop the war if he reined in the separatists.

Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin told the Security Council that the situation in Ukraine, particularly in Donetsk and Luhansk, is disastrous and called on the international community to take emergency measures to improve the humanitarian measures in the area.

The situation in Luhansk, a city of more than 400,000, remains critical as residents have no access to electricity and water, while both fixed-line and mobile phone connections are off, the local council said on its website. Shops are closed, limiting the availability of food and fuel, it said.

The pro-Russian separatist forces, which now number about 15,000, up from 300 when the conflict started, hold less than half the territory they did four weeks ago, Ukrainian defense minister Valeriy Geletey said in a BBC interview broadcast this week. BLOOMBERG

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Published: 06 Aug 2014, 03:18 PM IST
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