While the ongoing tête-à-drooling, dementia-addled doddering old man and Moscow continues, splayed across Twitter and mainstream media headlines and the fate of the Ukrainian people seems to hang in the balance as Europe stands on a knife-edge… the artillery shells have already started to fall. Reports from Thompson Reuters has revealed that shelling has resumed between the military force of Ukraine’s government in Kyiv and Moscow-funded pro-Russian Separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in violation of the Minsk cease-fire agreement that has held the ongoing civil war frozen for years.
According to ABC News,
“Mortar rounds fired by the separatists struck kindergarten number 21 in the village of Stanytsa Luhansk on Thursday morning close to the frontline with Ukrainian troops, injuring three adults, according to Ukraine’s military. Video filmed by Ukrainian soldiers showed a hole blown in the school’s wall. Twenty children had to be evacuated but were unhurt, Ukraine’s armed forces said.”
At the same time, the Russian parliament or Duma voted overwhelmingly to recognize the independence of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk ‘Peoples’ Republics’. The document is sitting on Putin’s desk still, like a ticket to a ‘justified’ military expedition into Ukraine in order to ‘protect’ these nascent states.
“We have reason to believe they are engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “Every indication we have is they’re prepared to go into Ukraine and attack Ukraine.”
A False Flag From Moscow Or A Separatist Pretense?
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the press, “It could be a fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia, the invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake – even a real – attack using chemical weapons,” Blinken said. “Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing, or a genocide.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also said he was concerned that through the shelling from Moscow-backed separatists, Russia “is trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack against Ukraine.”
Simultaneously, Russian-controlled separatists accused the Ukrainian military of “large-scale” shelling onto their territory with ABC noting “The self-declared Peoples Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk on Thursday issued “emergency statements” claiming Ukrainian troops had fired onto civilian areas in nine villages, including with heavy caliber mortars. Rodion Miroshnik, a political advisor for the Lugansk ‘republic’, accused Ukraine of ordering a “massive provocation.”
Despite Moscow’s protestations to Washington, the Kremlin has reportedly accused the Ukrainian government of “exterminating” civilians in the area. Russia has also added that their demands for assurances of Russian security have been ignored by the US and NATO.
“In the absence of the readiness of the American side to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees of our security from the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to respond, including through the implementation of military-technical measures,” they said in a letter to the U.S. ambassador.