In the midst of increasing ceasefire violations and reports of conflicting responsibility for the shelling of a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luganska, leaders of the rebel republics of the Donbas have reportedly begun evacuating women, children and the elderly to the Rostov region of Russia.
On February 18th, Yaşar Halit Çevik, Chief Monitor to the OSCE’s Permanent Council stated that the current period of increased violations along the contact line had followed a 60% reduction in violations “in the month following 22 December 2021, when the Trilateral Contact Group participants expressed their determination to adhere to the ceasefire.” On the same day, the Ukraine SMM reported hundreds of explosions in both rebel territories, including 177 explosions “close to the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska” and was following up on reports of damage to a kindergarten school in the area.
According to reporting by AFP:
On Thursday, a shell punched a hole in the wall of a kindergarten in government-held territory near the frontline in the Ukrainian village of Stanytsia Luganska.
The 20 children and 18 adults inside escaped serious injury but the attack sparked international howls of protest.
“The children were eating breakfast when it hit,” school laundry worker Natalia Slesareva told AFP at the scene.
“It hit the gym. After breakfast, the children had gym class. So, another 15 minutes, and everything could have been much, much worse.”
On Friday, part of the village remained without electricity. Konstantin Reutsky, director of the Vostok SOS aid agency, told AFP that houses and a shop had been damaged.
The Ukrainian joint command center said the rebels had violated the ceasefire 45 times between midnight and 2:00 p.m. Friday, while the Donetsk and Lugansk separatist groups said the army had fired 27 times in the morning.
Russia’s TASS news agency reported this morning that the first 80 civilians from the Donbas had arrived at a health care center that had been converted to a temporary “accommodation” facility in Rostov where “f]ollowing instructions from Russian President Vladimir Putin, each refugee arriving in the region will receive 10,000 rubles (about $130).” According to the LPR Minister of Emergency Situations, Yevgeny Katsavalov, about 25,000 residents had left the LPR for Rostov by car and 10,000 were set to follow by organized convoy.
Likewise, thousands are reportedly in the midst of being evacuated from the DPR to Russia:
The DPR authorities are expecting to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from the most vulnerable categories of its population from all of its districts to Russia’s Rostov region, a source with the DPR parliament told Interfax.
According to Antiwar.com:
Shortly after [DPR leader] Pushilin’s announcement [of evacuations], a car bomb exploded near the headquarters of the Donetsk People’s Republic, one of two major separatist break-off states in eastern Ukraine. The attack targeted Donetsk’s head of security. No injuries were reported in the attack, but the official’s vehicle was destroyed.
While there was some speculation the car bomb could be the trigger for a Russian invasion, Ukrainian officials continue to downplay the threat. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told his country’s parliament on Friday that “We estimate the probability of a large-scale escalation as low,” adding “Our intelligence sees every move that could pose a potential threat to Ukraine.”
Some analysts have suggested that if evacuees from the Donbas remain in Russia – many of them already have Russian citizenship – then it could be a boon for Russia’s demographic crisis and would be a way of assisting the Donbas residents that couldn’t be rationally characterized as “aggression” by the west.