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Putin recognizes Donetsk & Lugansk then orders troops into them on 'peacekeeping mission'
By RACHAEL BUNYAN and NICK CRAVEN IN KIEV FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 16:58 EST, 21 February 2022 | UPDATED: 17:11 EST, 21 February 2022
Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops to enter Ukraine on a 'peacekeeping mission' after he officially recognised the country's eastern regions as independent states - a move that will pave the way for a long-feared Russian invasion of Kiev.
Mail Online is exaggerating the threat to Kiev here. This appears to be very similar to the takeover of Crimea. I would be surprised if Putin wanted any more than the two breakaway regions.
The Russian President ordered his defence ministry to despatch Russian peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine's two breakaway regions - the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic - according to a decree signed by Putin recognising their independence.
Moscow provided no details or date for any deployment, with the order saying only that it 'comes into force from the day it was signed'.
Recognising the rebel regions' independence effectively shatters the Minsk peace agreements and opens the door for Russia to sign treaties with the 'states' and openly send troops and weapons there to defend them against Ukrainian 'threats'.
The move fuels further tension with the West and narrows the diplomatic options available to avoid war, since it is an explicit rejection of a seven-year-old ceasefire mediated by France and Germany, still touted as the framework for any future negotiations on the wider crisis.
A framework that Ukraine never proceeded to build upon.
The Kremlin said that upon hearing that Putin will sign the order to recognise the independence of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had 'expressed disappointment' over the decision in phone calls with the Russian President.
Mr Johnson said Putin's decision to recognise the two separatist Ukrainian republics was in breach of international law and an 'ill omen' and 'dark sign' that things are moving in the wrong while UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the move would not go 'unpunished' as she announced new sanctions on Russia.
The EU's top officials also said they will impose sanctions, while the U.S. has ordered sanctions which will prohibit new investment, trade and financing in the two separatist regions of Ukraine recognised by Putin.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg also condemned Putin, accusing Russia of 'trying to stage a pretext to invade Ukraine yet again'.
Earlier, Putin vowed to decide 'today' whether to recognise Ukraine's eastern regions as independent states. He made the remark at the end of an hours-long security council meeting that was broadcast on Russian TV during which the country's top security officials were called up one by one and asked to lay out the case for war - seemingly aimed at persuading a skeptical public of the need to attack.
Having spent days staging what are widely believed to be false flag attacks on Ukrainian soil and blaming them on Kiev, ministers presented the 'evidence' to Putin today: Claiming Russians in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions are under threat of 'genocide', that no peace deal can save them, and that he must intervene to save lives.
But in evidence that the entire spectacle was being staged - with the West warning a decision to invade has already been made - eagle-eyed viewers noticed that defence minister Sergei Shoigu's watch was five hours behind Moscow time, suggesting the hearing was pre-recorded.
All eyes will now turn to Ukraine's border regions for evidence that Russian troops have crossed, after videos published earlier in the day showed tanks and armoured vehicles in 'battle formations' - some of them less than three miles from the frontier.
Dymtro Kuleba, Ukraine's defence minister, said after the council meeting that 'the entire world' will watch what Russia does next and that 'everyone realises the consequences' if Putin vows to recognise the breakaway regions. 'We all should calmly focus on de-escalation efforts, [there is] no other way,' he tweeted.
It comes as two Ukrainian soldiers died on Monday and three were wounded in a shelling attack in Zaitseve, a village 18 miles north of the rebel stronghold Donetsk, Ukraine's national police said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had a phone call with Putin this evening, warned him that recognising the eastern regions would be a 'one-sided' breach of peace negotiations and that he has a 'responsibility' to de-escalate tensions by removing troops from the border.
Meanwhile Joe Biden called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and convened a meeting of his National Security team after Putin slammed the U.S. for 'colonizing' Ukraine and using it as a 'puppet regime' in televised remarks before signing the decree.
Pentagon names culprits behind disastrous Afghan withdrawal
US military points finger at President Joe Biden and other top officials for interfering
in evacuation Pentagon names culprits behind disastrous Afghan withdrawal
© Getty Images / Marcus Yam
The Pentagon’s exhaustive report on the haphazard US departure from Afghanistan has revealed many on the ground blamed constant meddling by American VIPs for “distracting” them from what needed to be done, creating the chaotic scenes that shocked observers at home.
According to the 2,000 page report, obtained by the Washington Post via the Freedom of Information Act request earlier this week, the senior officers in charge of the evacuation were even forced to change plans because of the nonstop interference from afar. The report includes numerous interviews, including testimony regarding the suicide bombing outside the airport that killed 170 Afghans and 13 Americans just days before they were supposed to leave Afghanistan for good after the longest war in US history.
“You had everyone from the White House down with a new flavor of the day for prioritization,” Rear Admiral Peter Vasely, the senior US figure in Kabul at the time of the evacuation, told the military interviewer. And it wasn’t just President Biden calling in favors, either – First Lady Jill Biden, members of Congress, journalists, and even the Vatican all weighed in on who needed rescuing the most, according to the rear admiral.
Having spent 13.5 years in the military, you would think I would know something about Military Intelligence. Apparently not! For the ranking military officer in Afghanistan was a Rear Admiral. Afghanistan is, of course, a land-locked country, so why they would put a Naval Officer in charge makes no sense to me.
“I cannot stress enough how these high-profile requests ate up bandwidth and created competition for already-stressed resources,” Vasely continued, noting that he could “only speculate” regarding whether the confusion and chaos that resulted caused some Americans and friendly Afghans to be left behind.
With thousands of phone calls, texts, and emails descending on Kabul during the 17-day evacuation, Vasely said he had no choice but to pull personnel from other operations to form a “coordination cell” able to process all the communications.
Social media, he said, only made things worse – giving people the ability to campaign for the military to rescue not just specific people, but specific dogs.
Again, why allow communications from anyone other than your immediate superior to affect your operation is beyond me. They should all have been referred to the Pentagon where they had the personnel to deal with them.
While Biden insisted with less than a week to go before the US had promised to depart that no American who wanted to leave would be left behind, it soon became obvious that getting everyone out by August 31st would not be possible, and the administration reportedly considered extending the deadline into September – only to be met with a “visceral response” from the Taliban, who were effectively in charge of the country by that point.
The initial plan had been to evacuate American citizens, then lawful permanent residents, and finally Afghans who had helped the Americans during the two-decade occupation of their country. Military leaders had urged the White House and State Department to sign off on evacuation preparations weeks in advance, but complained the stateside authorities had “failed to grasp” the Taliban’s rapid progress toward Kabul, believing they had more time than they actually did.
Apparently, they were not aware of the lightning-like ISIS take-over of much of Syria and Iraq.
However, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has defended the administration’s sluggish response, insisting the National Security Council had been meeting on the topic of withdrawing from Afghanistan for “months,” plotting out responses to various crises – except the one that actually occurred. They couldn’t possibly have foreseen how easily the Afghan security forces would be vanquished by the Taliban, she said.
They could have, but for their arrogance.
While the exact number of US citizens left behind vacillated between 100 and 450 depending on when one asked the State Department, a White House official who spoke to the Post believes every American who wanted to leave Afghanistan has had a chance to do so.
It’s not clear whether the Pentagon’s report also included statistics on how many of the Afghans who assisted the Americans in the war effort made it out of the country. Many attracted the unwanted attention of the Taliban when the Biden administration handed out a list of their names to the fundamentalist group so that they could be allowed through the perimeter to the airport. A Pentagon official told Politico at the time that the administration had effectively handed the Taliban a “kill list,” noting the group’s reputation for doing away with their countrymen who assisted the Americans.
I am not aware of anyone on that list having been killed. If you are, please inform me.
Finland makes massive military investment with US
Helsinki signs a deal for 64 US-built F-35 stealth jets, at a reported cost of $9.4 billion
© Photo by Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images
Finland has penned a multibillion-dollar deal with the US to purchase 64 American-built F-35 fighter jets, the Finnish Defense Forces announced on Friday. The radar-evading warplanes will reportedly cost the European country, which is traditionally militarily non-aligned, some $9.4 billion.
The aircraft will not enter service for some years, with Finnish officials previously saying deployment of the planes would begin in 2027. The new jets are being brought in to replace Finland’s current Hornet fleet.
In addition to the 64 planes, the deal sees American defense contractor Lockheed Martin providing maintenance equipment, spare parts, and training services, the Finnish Defence Forces said in a statement.
“The aim is to ensure that Finland’s F-35 system has the best possible performance going into the 2030s,” the statement added.
Mikko Hautala, Finland’s ambassador to the US, said the purchase was not linked to the current tensions between neighboring Russia and the West. “It is part of our long-term planning and has nothing to do with the current situation as such,” Hautala stated.
In selecting the F-35, Finland rejected alternative options from other planemakers including Dassault Rafale of France and Eurofighter Typhoon in the UK.
The country remained strategically neutral during the Cold War but has strengthened ties with the West in recent years. In January, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said the government had no plans to join NATO, but would retain the right to join if it so wishes.
Finland was forced to cede territory, including parts of Karelia, Salla, and Kuusamo, to the Soviet Union in the so-called Winter War of 1939-40. Lands and cities such as Vyborg, historically claimed by Finland, now sit in Russia.
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