Russian Lawmakers Approve Putin Request To Use Military Force Outside Russia
According to RFE/RL, Russia’s upper house of parliament has voted unanimously to grant President Vladimir Putin's request to use military force outside the country, a move further inflaming a crisis with Western countries over Ukraine.
Earlier on February 22, Putin sent a letter to the Federation Council asking to formalize a military deployment to regions in eastern Ukraine that Russia-backed separatists claim to control a day after the Russian president had recognized their independence.
"By approving the use of the armed forces abroad, we assume they will be peacekeeping forces - forces designed to maintain peace and stability in the (self-proclaimed east Ukrainian) republics," Valentina Matvienko, the upper house's speaker, said before the vote.
Putin later said the current crisis could end if Ukraine renounced its ambition to join NATO and if Western countries halted weapons shipments to the country. Speaking at a news conference, he said a Ukraine peace agreement known as the Minsk accord aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine "does not exist" anymore and blamed Kyiv for killing it off.
The executive orders that Putin issued on February 21 did not specify exactly what Moscow has recognized, but he said during the news conference that Russia recognizes the independence of Ukraine's separatist regions, including territory now controlled by Kyiv.
"We recognize them, which means all their founding documents and constitutions, which say that their borders coincide with the Luhansk and Donetsk regions at the time they were still part of Ukraine," Putin said.
The Ukrainian military currently controls of about two-thirds of the territory on its side of a line of contact, including the important Azov Sea port of Mariupol. The separatists hold the other one-third, including the two provincial capitals, Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia still hopes the issues can be resolved through peaceful negotiations, Putin told the news conference, but added that "for the time being it is out of the question because combat activities are going on there and the situation is deteriorating.”
Earlier in Brussels, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Russia has not stopped planning for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"Every indication is that Russia is continuing to plan for a full-scale attack of Ukraine," Stoltenberg told a news conference. "We continue to call on Russia to step back...it's never too late not to attack," he added.
The White House referred to Russian troop deployments in eastern Ukraine as an “invasion,” indicating that a red line had been crossed that would result in the U.S. levying severe sanctions against Moscow.
