The industrial region of Donbas, internationally recognized as Ukrainian but partly controlled by the separatists, quickly became the flashpoint in a broader standoff that the U.S. A pretext for a power grab?Ī significant spike in shelling in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists had been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 in a conflict that cost an estimated 14,000 lives, intensified concerns that the Kremlin was trying to create a pretext for an attack. Ukraine’s leaders sought to play down the threat and calm its citizens, but events soon took a turn. believed Putin had made the decision to invade. Weeks of ominous intelligence assessments culminated in President Joe Biden making it clear that the U.S. Moscow tried to signal it was pulling some troops back, but the West rejected the suggestion and said Russia was increasing its presence instead. It raised fears that Russia could use the pretext of the exercises to launch a direct attack on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, from the north. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP file Russia denied it had any plans for an invasion, even as it gathered troops and equipment in Belarus for what the countries said were pre-planned military drills. ![]() Ratcheting up tensions, Moscow launched massive military drills with close ally Belarus, to Ukraine’s north, amassing an estimated 30,000 troops and heavy military equipment - the biggest such deployment to the former Soviet state since the Cold War, according to NATO. Putin made it clear he felt the West had failed to meet Russia’s demands, but left the world hanging about what he might do next.
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