There is no relief in sight in the Ukraine conflict. Russia is now testing nuclear weapons, while fighting appears to be raging again in eastern Ukraine. News ticker.
- In the escalating Ukraine conflict*, NATO chief Stoltenberg warns: “All signs indicate that Russia is planning a full-scale attack on Ukraine.”
- Russia is currently testing nuclear weapons.
- There were new attacks in eastern Ukraine on Sunday night.
- This News ticker on the Ukraine conflict is continuously updated. You can find all information about the crisis here here.
Updated February 20, 11:28 am: Russian troops remain in Belarus for further military exercises. Amid the deepening Ukraine crisis, Belarus has announced an extension of joint military exercises with Russia. Because of the “increase in military activities” near the Belarusian border and due to the “deterioration of the situation in Donbass,” President Alexander Lukashenko and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin decided to continue military exercises, the Defense Ministry said on Sunday in the Telegram messenger service. Russia had previously pledged to withdraw its soldiers from Belarus after the maneuvers ended as scheduled this Sunday.
Ukraine conflict: Johnson warns of “biggest war in Europe since 1945”
February 20 update at 10:42 a.m: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned of a war on the scale of World War II in view of the impending escalation in Ukraine. “I’m sorry to say that the scale of the plan we’re seeing is something that could really be the biggest war in Europe since 1945,” Johnson told the BBC on the sidelines of the Munich security conference.
“Everything indicates that the plan has already begun in a way,” said Johnson, who had been very aggressive in warning of Russian “false flag operations” in the past few days. This is how deliberately staged actions are described, for which other forces – in this case Ukrainian forces – are blamed afterwards. Russia could stage something to create a pretext for an invasion, so the concern.
“People really need to understand how many lives could be affected,” Johnson warned of the impending escalation and again announced severe sanctions in this case. Britain and the US would make it impossible for Russian companies to “deal in pounds and dollars”, which would hit them hard.
Ukraine conflict: new battles! NATO chief warns of “full-scale attack” by Russia
First report from February 20th: Luhansk/Moscow – The Ukraine conflict* is coming to a head. Fears of a possible major Russian attack on Ukraine in the near future are currently fueled by two aspects in particular. First: new Russian military exercises. Second, a significant increase in ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine – the area near the Russian border where Western-equipped government troops have been fighting Russian-backed separatists since 2014. According to the UN, 14,000 people have been in the area so far.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Saturday evening: “The risk of an attack is very high.” And further: “All signs indicate that Russia is planning a full-scale attack on Ukraine.” US President Joe Biden called a special meeting for Sunday its National Security Council. The Foreign Office called on Germans to leave Ukraine immediately.
Ukraine conflict: Russia tests nuclear weapons
In the meantime, a new large-scale maneuver began in Russia, in which, among other things, hypersonic cruise missiles and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles were fired. So nuclear power Russia is testing nuclear weapons. According to the Kremlin, in addition to the air force, “strategic” troops and the Black Sea and Northern Sea fleets are also involved in the exercises personally supervised by President Vladimir Putin*.
Ukraine conflict: new attacks in Luhansk and Donetsk
In the conflict area in eastern Ukraine, there were new attacks on Sunday night. The insurgents in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions announced in the morning that villages had been shelled several times since midnight. The Ukrainian army also listed several violations of the current ceasefire in the morning. The respective data could not be verified independently. Nothing was initially known about victims. The military had already spoken of two soldiers killed on Saturday.
According to international observers, the number of ceasefire violations is rising massively. In the Luhansk region, 975 violations were found, including 860 explosions, according to a statement by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Sunday night. 591 violations were reported for the Donetsk region, including 535 explosions. These figures referred to the situation on Friday. A day after a Ukrainian kindergarten was allegedly hit by artillery fire. The crisis continues. (as/dpa) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
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