There are 22 kilometers in a row - reports Tass - along the border between the self-proclaimed separatist region of Donetsk, in Donbass, and Russia after the evacuation order launched by local authorities . Among the thousands queued above all women and children on the buses made available to leave Ukraine.
"The situation is deteriorating" and Westerners will find "an excuse" to impose sanctions on Moscow without responding to its demands on European security, which Berlin dismissed as "Cold War demands". Russian President Vladimir Putin said, quoted by the Interfax news agency: "What is happening" in eastern Ukraine "is very worrying and potentially very dangerous", warned the Kremlin spokesman.
THE DONBASS - The eyes of the world remain focused on the area east of Ukraine. Tension exploded today when the leaders of the two separatist republics, at the sound of sirens, ordered the evacuation of civilians in Russia and launched an appeal to arms amid the intensification of artillery shelling and the explosion of a nearby car bomb. at the Donetsk government building.
The deafening cannonballs of the propaganda are superimposed on the artillery exchanges of which the parties continue to accuse each other, causing the tension to skyrocket.
The joint command center of the Ukrainian forces said that only today the rebels of the so-called People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk launched 45 attacks, after Thursday, among other things, a kindergarten and a high school were hit, without causing casualties. While the separatist militias speak of 27 bombings by the forces of Kiev.
And while the Kremlin continues to talk about partial withdrawal, US Ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter estimated that Moscow has amassed up to 190,000 troops "near and inside" Ukraine, including the secessionist republics.
THE EXERCISES - In the next few hours Putin will supervise the maneuvers of his strategic forces together with his closest ally in this crisis, the Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko, to crown their common "war games".
The Russian exercises, explained the Moscow defense ministry, "will involve forces and equipment belonging to the Aerospace Forces, the Southern Military District, the Strategic Missile Forces, the Northern Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet", with the aim of verify the readiness of military commands and crews of missile systems, warships and strategic bombers to carry out their missions, as well as verify the reliability of the weapons of strategic nuclear and conventional forces. Maneuvers that seem the general rehearsal of a short attack.
BIDEN MEETS EVERYONE - United States President Joe Biden is keeping the path of diplomatic negotiations open on European security and playing the only other card available: unity with Europeans and the threat of quick and severe sanctions in case of invasion .
For this reason he decided to hear them all together in a video call and take stock of the situation: Mario Draghi, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau, the Polish Duda and the president of Romania Johannis, in addition to the general secretary of the Jens Stoltenberg was born and, for the EU, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Prime Minister Charles Michel.
DRAGONS IN MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mario Draghi will be in Moscow in the next few days for an "interview that was requested by Putin and the important thing is that the attitude of Italy, but also of other countries, is the unity of NATO which it is without nuances. But alongside this it is important that there is a firm stance in the face of the attack in Ukraine. Now all the possibilities for dialogue must be kept open. The ambition is to bring everyone to the same table and we must do everything possible to make this happen ".
THE SANCTIONS - As for the sanctions, the premier said at a press conference at the end of the council of ministers, at the moment there is no assessment "on the quantitative impact" but "it is known that certain sanctions would have more impact on Italy and less on other countries. And the answer is clear enough: all the sanctions that indirectly impact the energy market impact the most on the country that imports the most gas. And Italy has only gas, it does not have nuclear and coal and is more exposed ". For this reason, he adds, "we are also studying how Italy can continue to be procured from other sources if those from Russia fail".
(Unioneonline / D)