The Buildup To War In Ukraine - Thursday, February 17, 2022
February 17, 2023
On February 17 2022, a Thursday, the UN security Council held a meeting about the situation in Ukraine:
Speaking at the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed some conclusions of U.S. intelligence in a strategy that the U.S. and Britain have hoped will expose and pre-empt any invasion planning. The U.S. has declined to reveal much of the evidence underlying its claims.He told the diplomats that a sudden, seemingly violent event staged by Russia to justify invasion would kick it off.
“We don’t know exactly” the pretext — a “so-called terrorist bombing” inside Russia, a staged drone strike, “a fake, even a real attack … using chemical weapons,” he said.
It would open with cyberattacks, along with missiles and bombs across Ukraine, he said. Painting the U.S. picture further, Blinken described the entry of Russian troops, advancing on Kyiv, a city of nearly 3 million, and other key targets.
U.S. intelligence indicated Russia also would target “specific groups” of Ukrainians, Blinken said, again without giving details.
In an implicit nod to Secretary of State Colin Powell’s appearance before the Security Council in 2003, when he cited unsubstantiated and false U.S. intelligence to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Blinken added: “Let me be clear. I am here today not to start a war, but to prevent one.”
We know today that there was no 'staged violent event'. There were also no cyberattacks and no attacks on specific groups. U.S. intelligence before the war seems to have been as bad as ever.
The increase in shelling that had happened the day before was finally noticed:
Separatist authorities in the Luhansk region reported an increase in Ukrainian government shelling along the tense line of contact. Separatist official Rodion Miroshnik said rebel forces returned fire.Ukraine disputed the claim, saying separatists had shelled its forces but they didn’t fire back. The Ukrainian military command said shells hit a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, wounding two teachers, and cut power to half the town.
The head of the monitoring mission for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Yasar Halit Cevik, said it reported 500 explosions along the contact line from Wednesday evening to Thursday. Cevik told the Security Council the tensions then appeared to ease, with about 30 blasts reported.
Unfortunately the OSCE's Cevik was wrong.
Also on February 17 2022 the Associated Press published a good explainer pieceabout the 'Russia-backed rebels'. I made a few points that 'western' media do not dare to repeat today (emphasis added):
When Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president was driven from office by mass protests in February 2014, Russia responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. It then threw its weight behind an insurgency in the mostly Russian-speaking east, known as Donbas.In April 2014, Russia-backed rebels seized government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, proclaimed the creation of “people’s republics” there and battled Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions.
The following month, the separatist regions held a popular vote to declare independence and make a bid to become part of Russia. Moscow hasn’t accepted the motion, in the hope of using the regions as a tool to keep Ukraine in its orbit and prevent it from joining NATO.
The 2014 votes for independence were cited by Russia when it later recognized the prior Ukrainian oblast as independent countries.
Ukraine and the West accused Russia of backing the rebels with troops and weapons. Moscow denied that, saying any Russians who fought in the east were volunteers.
The former Swiss Intelligence officer Jacques Baud has said that most of the weapons and men on the rebel side had come from units of the Ukrainian army which had change sides. They did not come from Russia:
In 2014, I am at NATO, responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we are trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels in order to see if Moscow is involved. The information that we receive then comes practically all from the Polish intelligence services and does not “match” with the information from the OSCE: in spite of rather crude allegations, we do not observe any delivery of arms and materials Russian military.The rebels are armed thanks to the defections of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units which cross over to the rebel side. As the Ukrainian failures progressed, the entire tank, artillery or anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what drives the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Accords.
...
However, let us remember, there were never any Russian troops in the Donbass before February 23-24, 2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest trace of Russian units operating in the Donbass.
The AP piece also repeated a point I have previously made about the sequencing in the Minsk agreements. It was the Ukrainian side which blocked their implementationby demanding border control before guaranteeing self-rule for Donbas (emph. add.):
After a massive defeat of Ukrainian troops in the battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014, envoys from Kyiv, the rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe signed a truce in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in September 2014.The document envisaged an OSCE-observed cease-fire, a pullback of all foreign fighters, an exchange of prisoners and hostages, an amnesty for the rebels and a promise that separatist regions could have a degree of self-rule.
The deal quickly collapsed and large-scale fighting resumed, leading to another major defeat for Ukrainian forces at Debaltseve in January-February of 2015.
France and Germany brokered another peace agreement, which was signed in Minsk in February 2015 by representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the rebels. It envisaged a new cease-fire, a pullback of heavy weapons and a series of moves toward a political settlement. A declaration in support of the deal was signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
The 2015 peace deal was a major diplomatic coup for the Kremlin, obliging Ukraine to grant special status to the separatist regions, allowing them to create their own police force and have a say in appointing local prosecutors and judges. It also envisaged that Ukraine could only regain control over the roughly 200-kilometer (125-mile) border with Russia in rebel regions after they get self-rule and hold OSCE-monitored local elections — balloting that would almost certainly keep pro-Moscow rebels in power there.
Many Ukrainians see it as a betrayal of national interests and its implementation has stalled.
The 'west' stalled and used the time to arm and train the Ukrainian army so that it could, in early 2022, try to take back the Donbas region by force.
The OSCE Special Observer Mission at the ceasefire line in southeast-Ukraine reported of February 17 that the number of ceasefire violations had again increased significantly. Artillery exchanges took place along several parts of the front.
In Donetsk region, the SMM recorded 222 ceasefire violations, including 135 explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 189 ceasefire violations in the region.In Luhansk region, the Mission recorded 648 ceasefire violations, including 519 explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 402 ceasefire violations in the region.
In violation of the withdrawal lines both sides increased the deployment of heavy equipment to 'training areas' as well as towards the border line:
In violation of withdrawal lines, the Mission observed a surface-to-air-missile system in a government-controlled area of Donetsk region. It also spotted 21 howitzers, five anti-tank guns (four of which probable) and one probable multiple launch-rocket system, in two training areas in non-government-controlled areas of Luhansk region.Beyond withdrawal lines but outside designated storage sites, the SMM saw ten towed howitzers and two surface-to-air-missile systems in government-controlled areas of Donetsk region, in two compounds (of which one near a residential area). It also spotted two surface-to-air missile systems, 12 mortars and 41 tanks, in two training areas in non-government-controlled areas of Luhansk region.
After the quiet start of the week the further sudden jump in ceasefire violations and explosions was quite noticeable.
The map shows explosions, the small black dots, on both sides of the ceasefire line. While only few of the hundreds of explosions were located and marked on the map a count of the black dots shows 23 impacts on the Donbas side and 13 on the government controlled side of the ceasefire line. The artillery duels thereby seemed to become more uneven than on the day before.
Posted by b on February 17, 2023 at 15:49 UTC | Permalink