Vladimir Putin orders troops into eastern Ukraine after recognising breakaway republics

Vladimir Putin has requested troops into japanese Ukraine soon after recognising two Moscow-backed separatist regions, hobbling the prospects of a diplomatic alternative to the crisis as he put his region on a war footing.

The Russian president directed his military services to enter rebel-held Donetsk and Luhansk areas in Ukraine’s Donbas border spot for “peacekeeping” operations just after signing decrees pronouncing their independence.

The decrees and armed forces purchase sparked worldwide condemnation as the US and European allies vowed to reply with sanctions, and Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, accused Russia of violating its sovereignty.

Antony Blinken, US secretary of condition, said the move to recognise the so-referred to as Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics as impartial was a “clear attack” on Ukraine’s sovereignty. “States have an obligation not to recognise a new ‘state’ produced through the risk or use of power,” he mentioned.

Blinken additional that US diplomatic team centered in the western metropolis of Lviv would expend the evening in Poland for “security reasons”.

“Ukraine unequivocally qualifies the latest actions of the Russian Federation as a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state,” Zelensky explained in an address to the country.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s international minister, mentioned he planned to meet Blinken in Washington on Tuesday.

Putin declared the moves next an angry televised speech in which he solid doubt on Ukraine’s statehood and accused the west of making use of the country as a instrument to damage Russia. He also created obvious that his grievances with Kyiv stretched to the country’s existence in its existing form.

The separatist Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics had been recognised at a signing ceremony in the Kremlin after Putin warned that Russia would hold Ukraine responsible for any “ensuing bloodshed” in the area.

A senior US formal mentioned Putin’s speech was section of an effort and hard work to justify an invasion of Ukraine that could arrive as early as in the “coming hours”.

“It was an assault on the pretty concept of a sovereign and impartial Ukraine,” the US formal stated. “He made a range of untrue statements about Ukraine’s intentions that seemed designed to excuse probable military motion. This was a speech to the Russian individuals to justify a war.”

The Russian troops look established to continue to be in the Donbas region indefinitely, in accordance to draft agreements printed by the Kremlin below which Russia would defend the separatist states’ borders. Moscow deployed troops to the Donbas in 2014-2015, but has denied, even with overpowering proof to the contrary, that it was a celebration to the conflict there.

Western powers fearful that the troops could assistance make a pretext for Russia to attack Ukrainian forces. Putin repeated unsupported statements that Ukraine has stepped up an artillery and “terrorist” marketing campaign versus the separatists, which Kyiv and its western allies said was laying the groundwork for a “false flag” operation.

Following Putin’s choice to recognise the spots as impartial, US president Joe Biden issued an govt buy banning new investment, trade and funding by US entities in the Donetsk and Luhansk locations.

The White House said it would unveil supplemental measures to respond to the “blatant violation of Russia’s intercontinental commitments”. The US formal explained Washington was looking at the motion of the Russian troops and would respond accordingly, without offering any specifics.

“We system to announce new sanctions on Russia tomorrow in reaction to Moscow’s choices and actions these days. We are coordinating with allies and associates on that announcement,” claimed a second US formal.

A spokesperson for Olaf Scholz mentioned the German chancellor “condemned” the recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, introducing that the move was “completely at odds with the Minsk agreement on a peaceful resolution of the conflict in jap Ukraine”.

Putin’s decision sparked an extreme round of diplomacy involving Biden, Scholz and Emmanuel Macron, president of France.

“This step will not go unanswered,” stated Scholz’s spokesperson.

A French formal stated “proportional, focused sanctions” would be discussed in Brussels and that “Russia will have to spend the value of its conclusions.” British isles overseas secretary Liz Truss said the United kingdom would also unveil sanctions on Tuesday.

Putin’s speech followed a meeting with his countrywide protection council wherever Russian officials lined up to denounce Ukraine and the US, disparage the stalled Minsk peace process and urge him to recognise the separatists.

“No one must blunder the theatrics as legit statecraft,” said the US formal. “This is Potemkin politics. President Putin accelerating the quite conflict that he is producing.”

The UN Safety Council held an unexpected emergency conference on Monday evening to go over the Ukraine disaster. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador, said Putin was laying assert to territories, this sort of as Finland and the Baltics, that were element of the Russian Empire.

“Putin wishes the world to journey again in time. To a time in advance of the United Nations. To a time when empires ruled the globe. But the relaxation of the globe has moved ahead. It is not 1919. It is 2022,” Greenfield-Thomas said.

Zhang Jun, the Chinese ambassador, pressured the have to have for diplomacy and termed on all get-togethers to “exercise restraint and steer clear of any action that may perhaps fuel tensions”.

Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya accused the US and its allies of earning “highly emotional” statements in reaction to Putin’s determination to recognise the two places in the Donbas as unbiased.

He also said Ukraine had greater shelling in the location, the latest in a string of statements that the US and its allies have dismissed as lies meant to support make the pretext for an invasion.

“We remain open up to diplomacy for a diplomatic solution. On the other hand, allowing a new massacre in the Donbas is one thing we do not intend to do,” Nebenzya claimed.

Day by day experiences of clashes in jap Ukraine have been an ominous backdrop to diplomatic endeavours to defuse the disaster. On Monday, Russia claimed it had ruined two Ukrainian military automobiles that strayed into its territory, killing 5. The unconfirmed incident would be the first immediate clash with Ukraine’s forces considering that Moscow mobilised 190,000 troops on its border.

Supplemental reporting by Person Chazan in Berlin, Derek Brower in New York and John Reed in Kyiv