Russian-backed separatist army on high alert: Ukraine

KYIV • Ukraine's military has warned that the Russian-backed separatist army in the country's east had been put on a high level of alert, completing a near-encirclement of Ukraine by forces now poised for military action, even as the Biden administration warned that a Russian invasion could be imminent.

The drills tested the separatists' preparation for live-fire operations, practising "driving artillery, tanks and armoured vehicles" in field exercises, the Ukrainian statement said. Some units of the force, believed to number 30,000 troops, were put on their highest level of alert, the Ukrainians said, and senior Russian military officers were observing the activity.

Friday's warning coincided with an even more dire pronouncement out of Washington, where officials said that Russia had moved up its timetable and could launch an invasion of Ukraine within a matter of days, even before the end of the Olympics. But officials also cautioned that they could not yet be sure exactly when, or even if, Mr Putin may decide to invade.

The assessment from Kyiv was the latest evidence of a shift by officials there to more alarming commentary about the military risk facing the country.

That follows weeks of efforts to minimise the threat of an invasion, seeking to calm the public, limit the economic fallout and avoid anything that could be deemed a provocation by Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday that warnings of an imminent Russian attack were stoking "panic" and demanded to see firm proof of a planned invasion.

Ukraine last week began its own nationwide military exercises to coincide with joint Russian and Belarusian exercises to the north of Ukraine, in Belarus, only 225km from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Those joint exercises involved a flurry of military activity on Friday, the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

Troops practised evacuating the wounded from the battlefield, manoeuvring with armoured vehicles and reconnaissance activities. Russia's air force jets fired at an airborne target.

To the south, the Russian navy announced on Thursday the closure of large swathes of the Black Sea for live-fire exercises by its fleet that will effectively blockade Ukrainian ports, including the port of Odessa.

The next day, Ukraine's sea port authority said Russia had withdrawn the restrictions.

The naval exercises were scheduled to begin today and last six days.

Russia has massed armoured vehicles and soldiers near its borders to the north-east of Ukraine and in the south on the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, as well as in Belarus.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to mediate, a proposal accepted by Ukraine but declined by Russia. This week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is scheduled to visit Kyiv and Moscow. And Russian officials have said they will respond in writing to proposals for security talks offered by the US and Nato.

NYTIMES, REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE