As Ukraine crisis deepens, NATO refutes Russian accusations

By Ian Davis, NATO Watch

Over the weekend, the crisis in Ukraine escalated on a number of fronts. The pro-Moscow protests in Ukraine’s eastern cities are now posing a critical threat to the integrity of the country. Separatists occupied key government buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk last week, but according to various news reports have now taken over several more buildings in other cities.

In a nationally televised address on Sunday night Ukrainian acting president Oleksander Turchinov gave separatists occupying state buildings until 0600 GMT today to lay down their weapons. With the deadline now lapsed, Kiev appears to be weighing up whether to try and remove the separatists by force, while Moscow is warning that this could result in a civil war in Ukraine.
 
This morning, The Guardian cites Sergei Taruta, the Kiev-appointed governor of Donetsk, as saying that an “anti-terrorist operation” was underway in the region and called on citizens “not to react to provocations”.  
 
At the request of Russia, the UN Security Council held an emergency session on Sunday evening to discuss the escalating crisis in Ukraine, but merely resulted in a continuation of the war of words between Ukraine's western allies and Russia.
 
Kiev, Washington and NATO accuse Moscow of staging another Crimea-style intervention by injecting armed mercenaries and irregulars into Eastern Ukraine. In a statement, NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, described the protests as "a concerted campaign of violence by pro-Russian separatists, aiming to destabilise Ukraine as a sovereign state".
 
He said the appearance of men carrying Russian weapons and wearing uniforms without insignia was a "grave development" and called on Russia to pull back its troops from Ukraine's border.
 
NATO also refuted Moscow’s accusation that the alliance was inflating the Russian military presence on the Ukrainian border.  Russian officials claimed that satellite images previously released by NATO showed military exercises conducted in August 2013. However, NATO published new photos on Friday that it said prove that the Russian military buildup occurred early last month.
 
NATO “stands firm in its assessment that Russian forces in the vicinity of the border with Ukraine number in the range of 35,000 to 40,000 troops and are equipped with infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, combat aircraft, logistics and artillery,” the allied command said on its Web site. “These ­forces are destabilizing to the region, which is why the North Atlantic Council has repeatedly called upon Russia to de-escalate the situation by withdrawing troops from the border with Ukraine”.
 
The photos were taken by Digital­Globe, a Colorado-based company that sells satellite imagery, and were not altered or edited by NATO, the alliance said.
 
NATO also took the unusual step of releasing a fact sheet that it said “sets the record straight” on Russian attempts “to divert attention away from its aggression against Ukraine”.