Recent ceasefire violations in Donbas hinder de-escalation of the conflict

The withdrawal of some Russian troops close to the Ukrainian border has not helped to ease tensions between Moscow and NATO. Likewise, the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) has denounced an increase in ceasefire violations in the Donbas area. This has been occurring since the war began in 2014.

In a recent report issued by the SMM (OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine), monitoring teams reported 189 ceasefire violations, including 128 explosions in the Donetsk region, while in Luhansk they recorded 402 violations, including 188 explosions. The mission notes that in the previous period 24 and 129 violations were reported respectively.

These military actions have provoked accusations between pro-Russian forces and the government in Kiev, which has branded the moves a "provocation". Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also praised the work of the OSCE and called on the mission to remain in the area.

Recently, however, some member states have withdrawn their observers for fear of Russian aggression. According to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), an independent organisation working in conflict zones, as of 16 February, the US, UK, Canada, Denmark and Albania have withdrawn their staff from Ukraine, while the Netherlands has moved its representatives to Kiev-controlled areas. These moves jeopardise the only mission monitoring and operating on both sides of the frontline since the start of the conflict in 2014.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the SMM "is now more necessary than ever" and urged to maintain it to avoid attempts to "manipulate the mission", reports IWPR.

In the midst of this situation, Moscow has finally submitted its response to Washington on its security demands. In the 11-page document, the Foreign Ministry accuses the US of not engaging with Russia's concerns and demands "legal guarantees" that Ukraine will never join NATO. "Given the unwillingness of the US side to negotiate solid and legally binding guarantees of our security by the United States and its allies, Russia will have to react, including through the implementation of measures of a military-technical nature," the Kremlin stresses, Russian news agency TASS reports. 

The note also alludes to the "imminent invasion" announced by Washington. "There is no 'Russian invasion' of Ukraine, which the US and its allies have been officially announcing since last autumn. It is not planned," stresses Sergey Lavrov's ministry. It also calls on the US government to stop supplying arms to Ukraine. The Biden administration has delivered more than 200 tons of weapons to the Ukrainian army since tensions began. "Withdraw all Western advisers and trainers from the country, stop participating in joint exercises with the Ukrainian armed forces and withdraw all foreign weapons previously supplied to Kiev," Moscow adds.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin has called on his US counterparts to look deeply and seriously into the document, stressing that Russia has the sovereign right to be concerned about its national security and to deploy troops on its territory wherever it deems necessary.

On the same day it presented its response to Washington, Russia decided to expel the number two of the US embassy in Moscow. According to Zakharova, the Kremlin took this decision "in response to the unreasonable expulsion of the minister-counsellor from the Russian Embassy in Washington, despite his status as a senior official". The State Department, for its part, has called the move a "provocation" that is a "further step in the escalation of tensions".

Despite the escalation of warfare and tensions, diplomacy persists in its attempt to reach a long-awaited political solution to the crisis in Ukraine. With the aim of bringing positions closer together and maintaining dialogue, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu will speak by telephone with his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, at the request of the United States, according to the Russian agency Interfax. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia's chief diplomat Lavrov will meet in Europe next week at Moscow's request. Washington agreed, "as long as there is no Russian invasion of Ukraine", said State Department spokesman Ned Price.

In this way, the US maintains its warnings about alleged Russian aggression. President Joe Biden has assured that the risk of invasion remains "very high". "All the indications we have are that they are prepared to go into Ukraine. My sense is that it will happen in the next few days," he said. The British prime minister agrees with his US ally that Russia is "designing a false flag operation" in the Donbas. This issue and many others are being discussed at the Munich Security Conference in the absence of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who ruled out taking part at the beginning of the month. 

Instead, Putin will meet with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko. The two will decide whether Russian troops taking part in military exercises on Belarusian territory will be withdrawn. The exercises are scheduled to end on 20 February. The meeting comes shortly after Lukashenko said his country would be ready to receive nuclear weapons if it felt threatened by the West. "If our rivals take such absurd steps, not only nuclear weapons, but even supernuclear and more advanced ones will be deployed in Belarus to defend our territory," he warned, according to local media reports.