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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday he was weighing a request by the leaders of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine to recognize them as independent states — a move that would allow Russia to roll troops into the disputed areas.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told state-run RIA Novosti that Putin would deliver a video address to the Russian people Monday night, hours after a televised meeting of Moscow’s Security Council took place while shelling continued in the war-torn Donbas region.
The US and its allies believe the Kremlin could use the conflict as a pretext to launch an invasion.
Images of the gathering showed Putin sitting alone at a desk while members of the council gathered on the opposite side of the ornately decorated room.
Putin alleged that Moscow has tried to resolve disputes between the people living in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas and the Kyiv government using peaceful means since Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014.
The Russian leader painted Ukraine as the aggressor, accusing Kyiv of launching a number of military offenses against the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and citing the most recent shelling reports — which Putin alleged violated the terms of a 2015 cease-fire brokered in Minsk, Belarus by France and Germany.
“It is clear to everyone that (Ukraine) is not going to do anything on this Minsk package of measures … Russia has made and is still making efforts to peacefully resolve all the difficult and tragic elements in the development of events, but today we are where we are,” Putin said.
Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) described a dire situation in Donbas, saying that 70,000 people had been moved to Russia after rebel leaders announced evacuation orders last week.
Recognizing the rebel-held territory as independent would allow Russia to openly deploy troops there.
Putin also addressed the security guarantees that he demanded of the US and NATO in December, arguing that if Ukraine is allowed to join the Atlantic alliance, “then the threats to our country will increase many times.”
The leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic also released televised messages appealing to Putin.
“With the goal of preventing mass deaths among the republic’s civilian population, some 300,000 of whom are Russian citizens, I’m asking you to recognize the sovereignty and independence of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” Leonid Pasechnik said, according to Russia-state news agency Tass.
At the same time, the Russian-backed separatists and Ukraine military continued to trade blame for the shelling in Donbas. Officials in the rebel-held areas said four civilians had been killed in the past 24 hours by Ukrainian forces firing on residential areas.
Ukraine’s military said two soldiers were killed over the weekend, with spokesman Pavlo Kovalchyuk telling the Associated Press that the separatists were “cynically firing from residential areas using civilians as shields” and emphasizing that Ukraine forces were not returning fire.
The Russian military claimed that it had killed five suspected “saboteurs” who crossed into the Rostov region of Russia, a statement Ukraine called “disinformation.”
With Post wires
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