Chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, Mikhail Mizintsev said, Ukraine is plotting, with the West’ support, provocations with massacre of civilians in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) to place the blame for it on the Russian army.
“Official Kiev, with the support from several Western countries, continues to plan barbarous and ruthless actions with mass killings of civilians in the Lugansk People’s Republic to later accuse the Russian armed forces and LPR troops,” he said.
According to Mizintsev, a provocation is planned in the Ragovka community in the Kiev region. The Ukrainian side, in his words, is plotting to shoot a fake video about searches of places of mass burials of civilians allegedly killed by Russian troops. “A team of Ukrainian forensic experts and police officers will be involved in the provocation to make it look more trustworthy,” he said.
“Reporters from foreign mass media outlets have arrived in the city of Kremennaya in the Severodonetsk district and have accommodated in the building of the local hospital. They are supposed to record the Ukrainian army’s provocation with the alleged selling of ambulance cars carrying patients by Russian troops,” he said.
Apart from that, he said that Ukrainian nationalists have mined reservoirs with chlorine at a water utility in the Popyasnaya district and plan to blow them up when forces of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) approach the city.
Europe is eliminating diplomacy
In an opinion editorial in Ria Novosti, Maxim Sokolov wrote:
A characteristic feature of the current crisis in relations with the West (as, indeed, in all major crises) is that urgent and even overripe issues are resolved in the most brutal way. Without showing opportunism and lubricating the issue.
Diplomacy in the narrow sense of the word, that is, the exchange of embassies, which traditionally took an active part in attempts to resolve contradictions between powers, was no exception. The present initiative of Europe puts an end to this very old custom.
Russia’s verbal reaction was not long in coming. The Russian Foreign Ministry promised retaliatory expulsions, which is pretty standard. Nobody canceled the rules “on the basis of reciprocity”, the talion law in such cases is quite valid.
The Kremlin, in turn, through the mouth of the press secretary D.S. Peskov, answering the question of the French TV channel LCI about the possibility of breaking off diplomatic relations between Moscow and Paris , noted that if the deportations continue, then “there is a potential risk that this will happen” . And this did not apply only to France, it was noted that the actions of European governments as a whole are “short-sighted”, since they “narrow the possibilities for diplomatic communication and work in such difficult crisis conditions.”
Actions are not only short-sighted, but sometimes mysterious. Of course, not the entire potential of the state is determined by the population, there are other parameters – and yet. The population of France – 67.5 million people, Slovakia – 5.5 million, that is, eight percent of the French. But both Paris and Bratislava expelled 35 diplomats each. Italians – 59.5 million, Slovenes – 2.1 million, that is, 3.5 percent. However, Rome sent 30 diplomatic workers, and Ljubljana – 33. Philosophize, the mind will spin. We are no longer talking about the decisiveness of the Baltic great powers.
The question arises how the heart will calm down.
In former times, expulsions were generally moderate. For activities incompatible with diplomatic status: that is, in other words, undercover spies were expelled in small numbers when they began to work quite rudely. This was followed by “tit for tat”, which was the end of the matter. This did not contribute to harmony in interstate relations, but it did not produce terrible disharmony either. What about the fact that from this side everyone understood: “You can spy, you can’t get caught.” And certainly the espionage routine is not a reason to break off diplomatic relations – “But how are we going to spy then?”…
Russian media cornered
Until now, a number of Russian large media outlets including TASS, Ria Novosti, and RT are being unavailable to the international audience due to blocking following Ukraine crisis. Even in some countries people cannot access these sites through VPN. Due to such situation, Kremlin is gradually getting cornered with massive bombardment of media assault by the international media, including several Ukrainian media. At the same time, major media outlets in the world are expressing direct solidarity towards Ukraine and President Zelensky. Some of these media outlets even are refusing to acknowledge Zelensky’s connections with neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other similar forces in Kiev.
