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Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) Valery Zaluzhny assures that the Ukrainian army is not planning any offensive operations or shelling of civilians in the Donbass.
“According to information coming from the CADO (certain districts of the Donetsk region – ed.), in some settlements in the temporarily occupied territory, in particular in Donetsk, it is planned to evacuate the local population in connection with a possible aggravation. We officially announce: the Armed Forces of Ukraine strictly adhere to the Minsk agreements and the norms of international humanitarian law, do not plan any offensive operations or shelling of civilians,” Zaluzhny’s Facebook statement was quoted by UNIAN.
According to him, the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are exclusively defensive in nature.
Meanwhile, the observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in their daily report record an increase in the number of violations of the ceasefire by the parties to the conflict in Donbass, Interfax notes.
In turn, the director of the Department of Municipal Security of the Kiev Administration, Roman Tkachuk, said on Hromadske Radio that almost the entire population would be evacuated in Kiev in the event of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of hostilities in the capital. “In the event of hostilities, evacuation will be carried out, and only critical infrastructure workers and the Armed Forces of Ukraine will remain in the city,” RBC quotes the head of the department.
Recall that starting from November-December 2021, Western countries, as well as Ukraine, have been making statements about a possible “invasion” of Russia into Ukrainian territory. Recently, US speakers have argued that an attack could happen “any day.” Moscow denies all accusations and assures that Russia poses no threat to anyone. Earlier, various Western media indicated that the sign of the “invasion” is the accumulation of Russian military equipment in the regions bordering Ukraine. At the same time, among the likely anti-Russian sanctions were both the shutdown of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, as well as restrictions against Russian energy companies, and the shutdown of the SWIFT international interbank settlement system.
Recently, The Sun tabloid claimed that Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine would take place at 3:00 Kyiv time (4:00 Moscow time) on February 16, which ultimately did not happen. Following this, the newspaper Politico “set” a new date for the “attack” – February 20. According to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Russian troops are preparing to launch an invasion of Ukraine in “the coming days.”
Moreover, the British Ministry of Defense has already published on its Twitter a map of a possible Russian attack on the cities of Ukraine, including from the territory of Belarus and Crimea.
Source: Rosbalt
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
