Fear of Conflict Escalating Into Broader War

KYIV (Dispatches) -- Ukraine on Wednesday told residents of the country’s eastern regions to evacuate “now” or “risk death” due to a feared Russian attack.
“The governors of the Kharkiv, Lugansk and Donetsk regions are calling on the population to leave these territories and are doing everything to ensure that the evacuations take place in an organized manner,” deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.
The call for urgent evacuations comes as Ukraine says Russian forces are regrouping to launch a fresh offensive in the country’s east after retreating from the Kyiv region.
Vereshchuk asked residents to cooperate with authorities, saying Kyiv will “not be able to help” them after an attack.
“It has to be done now because later people will be under fire and face the threat of death. There is nothing they will be able to do about it, nor will we be able to help,” she said.
“It is necessary to evacuate as long as this possibility exists. For now, it still exists,” she added.
The Kremlin has declared that Ukraine’s Donbas is now a priority for the Russian army.
NATO believes Moscow aims to take control of the whole Donbas region in eastern Ukraine with the aim of creating a corridor from Russia to annexed Crimea.
Russian artillery pounded key cities in Ukraine on Wednesday, as its president urged the West to impose new and tougher sanctions against Russia.
The United States announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian banks as well as Kremlin officials and their family members. The head of the European Commission signaled further moves – including examining energy imports – on top of sanctions unveiled by the bloc on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the West needed to act decisively in taking “more rigid” steps against Russia.
“I can’t tolerate any indecisiveness after everything that Russian troops have done,” Zelensky told Irish lawmakers by videolink.
Some Western leaders “still think that war and war crimes are not something as horrific as financial losses”, he added.
But a crack in a unified EU front emerged, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban saying his government was prepared to accede to Russia’s demand to pay in rubles for Russian gas.
Moscow last week demanded payments for gas in rubles from countries it deemed “unfriendly”, but Brussels said those with euro or dollar contracts should stick to them.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy which relies on Russian gas for

much of its energy needs, warned that while it supported ending Russian energy imports as soon as possible it could not do it overnight.

The war has killed thousands, turned entire cities into rubble and left a quarter of Ukraine’s population homeless. As it heads into its seventh week, the risk that it could escalate into a broader conflict remains a concern.

Reflecting such fears, the EU executive said it had begun a stockpiling operation to boost its defenses against chemical, nuclear and biological threats.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said only an embargo on sales of gas and oil that provide billions of dollars to Russia every week and cutting off all Russian banks from the global financial system could halt the war.

“It will take a gas/oil embargo and de-SWIFTing of all Russian banks to stop Putin. Difficult times require difficult decisions,” Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter, referring to the international SWIFT network for bank transfers.

The new sanctions may increase economic hardship for Russians without putting much of a dent in Russia’s energy revenues, according to U.S. sanctions analysts.

Russia supplies around 40% of the EU’s natural gas consumption. The EU also gets a third of its oil imports from Russia, about $700 million per day.

“We are at the point where we have to take some pain,” said Benn Steil, of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York. “The initial batches of sanctions were crafted as much to not hurt us in the West as much as they were to hurt Russia.”

Hungary’s Orban said he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin and asked him to announce an immediate ceasefire.

He said he had invited Putin for talks in Hungary to be held with the Ukrainian and French presidents as well as the German chancellor. Putin’s response was “positive”, he said, but added the Russian leader said there would be conditions.

On Wednesday, to the south, a siege of the southern port of Mariupol – under bombardment through most of the invasion that began on Feb. 24 – continued, trapping tens of thousands of residents without food, water or power.

“The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening,” British military intelligence said, while Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said people trying to flee would have to use their own vehicles. .

Since pulling back from outside Kyiv last week, Russian forces have shifted their assault towards Ukraine’s south and east.

Ukraine’s general staff said the northeastern city of Kharkiv remained under attack.

kayhan.ir

Fear of Conflict Escalating Into Broader War