Putin orders ‘peacekeeping forces’ into two pro-Russian regions in eastern Ukraine

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Vladimir Putin ordered troops into two breakaway regions of Ukraine on Monday to ‘maintain peace’ soon after he recognized the area’s independence, triggering a huge escalation in tensions and the imposition of US sanctions.

His aggressive move immediately raised fears that invasion was imminent – or that it had already begun.  

President Joe Biden issued an executive order banning US investment or trade with the two regions while the State Department reportedly ordered its remaining staff to leave Ukraine for the safety of Poland.  

The US, UK and France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday evening.

It came after Putin signed decrees declaring the so-called DPR and LPR as sovereign states.

Biden immediately issued sanctions on the two regions and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Putin calling the regions ‘independent’ required a ‘swift and firm response’. 

The restrictions will prohibit new investment, trade and financing in the two separatist regions of Ukraine recognized by Putin, while the EU’s top officials said the bloc will also impose sanctions.

The president also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promising a ‘swift and decisive’ response to Putin’s latest move following a meeting with his national security team at the White House.

Jim Scuitto, a CNN national security who served as chief of staff to the U.S. Ambassador to China under Obama, said of the sanctions: ‘Is this really it?’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki assured in her Monday statement that there will be further measures taken in coordination with U.S. allies and partners if Russia further invades Ukraine.

‘We are continuing to closely consult with Allies and partners, including Ukraine, on next steps and on Russia’s ongoing escalation along the border with Ukraine,’ she wrote.

In searing address to the nation, Putin slammed the U.S. for ‘colonizing’ Ukraine and using it as a ‘puppet regime’ in remarks where he announced he would sign a decree recognizing two eastern regions of Ukraine as independent states. 

Biden also hopped on a secure call with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for approximately a half-an-hour shortly after Putin’s remarks.

Putin’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk rebel regions’ independence paves the way for the long-feared Russian invasion and effectively shatters the Minsk peace agreements. It also opens the door for Russia to sign treaties with the ‘states’ and openly send troops and weapons there to defend them against Ukrainian ‘threats’.

U.S. intelligence has warned for weeks that this would be the way Putin would go about trying to disguise his invasion of Ukraine. 

Putin lamented in his address Monday that America is ‘pumping’ in weapons to Ukraine and said this poses a threat to Russia because he claims Kyiv is creating ‘weapons of mass destruction’.

‘We have anticipated a move like this from Russia and are ready to respond immediately,’ Psaki wrote in her Monday statement following Putin’s remarks.

In other major developments in the Ukrainian standoff on Monday… 

Reports from US intelligence has suggested that Russia has a ‘kill list’ of Ukrainians to target if they invade and an attack could form two weeks of ‘terror’, with constant rocket attacks and street fighting  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Putin’s call to recognize the independence of the breakaway regions was a ‘very ill omen and a very dark sign’ Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg also condemned Putin, accusing Russia of ‘trying to stage a pretext to invade Ukraine yet again’Fresh explosions were heard in Ukraine’s eastern regions with separatist leaders claiming a Ukrainian citizen was killed and that Kiev’s troops had crossed the border in armoured vehiclesRussia claimed that a Ukrainian shell hit its territory in the Rostov-on-Don region, destroying an unoccupied guard postKiev has strongly denied shelling separatist or Russian positions Pro-Russian separatists said 60,000 people have now been evacuated from rebel-held areas to Russia Air France announced it is halting all flights to and from Kiev, following similar move by Germany’s Lufthansa

‘President Biden will soon issue an Executive Order that will prohibit new investment, trade, and financing by U.S. persons to, from, or in the so-called DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine,’ she detailed, adding ‘the Departments of State and Treasury will have additional details shortly.’

‘We will also soon announce additional measures related to today’s blatant violation of Russia’s international commitments,’ Psaki added.

A bipartisan group of 21 lawmakers pledged on Monday to ‘work toward whatever emergency supplemental legislation will best support our NATO allies and the people of Ukraine.’

‘No matter what happens in the coming days, we must assure that the dictator Putin and his corrupt oligarchs pay a devastating price for their decisions,’ they wrote.

Zelensky said he discussed with Biden on Monday afternoon ‘the events of the last hours’.

‘We begin the meeting of the National Security and Defense Council,’ he posted, adding: ‘A conversation with [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson is also planned.’

The White House confirmed that Biden did have a roughly 35-minutes call with Zelelnsky. 

Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were all spotted arriving at the White House West Wing Monday morning.

‘President Biden is meeting with his national security team at the White House today and is being regularly briefed on developments regarding Russia and Ukraine,’ a White House official confirmed. 

Biden also convened with his National Security Council on Sunday to discuss the latest developments in Eastern Europe as the west was still hoping for a diplomatic path forward at that point.

Putin assembled his inner circle on Monday as his top aides continue to advise him not to meet with President Joe Biden. 

‘We’ve been negotiating for eight years,’ Putin said during the meeting, adding: ‘We’ve reached a dead end.’

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 ceasefire mediated by France and Germany, still touted as the framework for any future negotiations on the wider crisis.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in a statement last week that if Russia did take the very action that it did on Monday, it would ‘necessitate a swift and firm response from the United States in full coordination with our Allies and partners.’

He said it would further undermine the sovereignty of Ukraine, which was formerly a Soviet Bloc nation.

Biden met with his national security team Monday to discuss the situation, having been rebuffed earlier in the day over a summit with Putin.

France claimed to have brokered a meeting between the two leaders next week, which the White House agreed to ‘in principle’, before the Kremlin said talks were ‘premature’ and no ‘concrete’ plans had been made.

It is the second time that French President Emmanuel Macron, who has tried to position himself as Europe’s top security negotiator, has been embarrassed by Moscow – given guarantees which were revoked when he made them public.

Two weeks ago, Macron claimed Putin had agreed to stop military drills on Ukraine’s border, which Russia immediately denied.

The Kremlin said that upon hearing that Putin will sign the order to recognize the independence of eastern Ukraine’s separatist republics, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had ‘expressed disappointment’ over the decision in phone calls with the Russian President.

Earlier on Monday, Putin vowed to decide ‘today’ whether to recognize Ukraine’s eastern regions as independent states during remark at the close of an hours-long security council meeting that was broadcast on Russian TV.

During that meeting, the Kremlin’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 Kyiv, 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 defense 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 armored vehicles in ‘battle formations’ – some of them less than three miles from the frontier.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Dymtro Kuleba, said following the Russian council meeting that ‘the entire world’ will watch what Putin does next and claimed ‘everyone realizes the consequences’ of Russia recognizing breakaway regions.

‘We all should calmly focus on de-escalation efforts, [there is] no other way,’ he tweeted.

The U.S. has warned the United Nation’s Security Council that Moscow has prepared a list of targets for assassination and imprisonment in detention camps.

And now NBC News is reporting that two people familiar with discussions have detailed Biden administration officials discussions with the Ukrainian government for President Volodymyr Zelensky to leave Kyiv in the event of a Russian invasion.

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.

Germany’s Scholz, who had a phone call with Putin Monday, warned him that recognizing the eastern regions would be a ‘one-sided’ breach of peace negotiations and that he has a ‘responsibility’ to deescalate tensions by removing troops from the border.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Russia plans to ‘crush’ Ukraine should it decide to go forward with a full-scale invasion.

‘We believe that any military operation of the size, scope and magnitude of what we believe the Russians are planning will be extremely violent,’ Sullivan told NBC News’ Today show on Monday morning. ‘It will cost the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, civilians and military personnel alike.’

‘But we also have intelligence to suggest that there will be an even greater form of brutality, because this will not simply be some conventional war between two armies,’ he continued.

‘It will be a war waged by Russia on the Ukrainian people to repress them, to crush them, to harm them. And that is what we laid out in detail for the U.N. because we believe that the world must mobilize to counter this kind of Russian aggression should those tanks roll across the border as we anticipate they very well may do in the coming hours or days.’

There are now thought to be 190,000 Russian troops on the border of Ukraine comprising around three quarters of its conventional forces backed by 500 fighter jets, 50 heavy bombers, and dozens of attack helicopters.

Sullivan told Good Morning America earlier on Monday that Moscow is moving forward with plans to invade after snubbing Biden’s offer for a summit on the caveat that Russia stands down.

‘We never give up hope on diplomacy until the missiles fly or the tanks roll,’ he said. ‘But we have been working hard for months with our allies and partners to get Russia to sit down in a serious way at the table – even as recently as yesterday, the president has indicated his readiness to do that. Russia has not shown the same willingness on their side.’

‘The likelihood that there’s a diplomatic solution, given the movements – the troop movements of the Russians, is diminishing hour by hour,’ Sullivan added.

‘Unfortunately, we have called out at every stage of this what the Russians were going to do and they’re doing it.’