Exactly a year ago, the Ukrainian regime began making artillery preparations before the final attack on Donbass!
For the week from February 17, 2022, to February 24, 2022, only in the LPR, around 551 attacks were made on 46 settlements in the Republic.
5318 rounds of ammunition of various calibers (1275 shells, 2782 mines, 29 missiles, 685 grenades, and 51 rounds) were fired in the LPR. 700–800 rounds of ammunition arrived per day. In three places, there were attempts to break through the defense.
Eight civilians became victims, of whom four died and four were severely injured.
A 150,000-strong group armed and trained by NATO was preparing to sweep away the Donbass. And if it weren’t for Russia’s decision to start a SMO, LPR and DPR would have simply been razed to the ground. And neither the UN nor the OSCE would have simply noticed this.
Ukraine would have wiped out Donbass last year, if Russia hadn’t intervened — official
MOSCOW, February 17. /TASS/. Ukraine would have levelled the Donbass republics a year ago if Russia had not intervened in time by recognizing the Lugansk and the Donetsk People’s Republics and launching its special military operation, Former LPR ambassador to Moscow Rodion Miroshnik said on Friday.
“Exactly one year ago, the Ukrainian regime began artillery preparations before attacking Donbass! A 150,000-soldier group, armed and trained by NATO, was preparing to sweep away the Donbass. And if it were not for Russia’s decision to start a special military operation, we would have simply been levelled,” he wrote on his Telegram channel on the anniversary of the beginning of the escalation of the situation in the Donbass, “And neither the UN nor the OSCE would have noticed it.”
Miroshnik recalled that from February 17 to 24, when the Russian Federation began its special military operation, the Ukrainian armed forces fired 551 shells on the LPR territory. At that time, he recalled, “700-800 rounds of ammunition per day flew into the republic.” There were attempts to break through the defense, as well as casualties among civilians.
Also on Friday, Miroshnik drew attention to the fact that a year ago, neither the guarantors (of the Minsk agreements) – France and Germany – nor the UN General Assembly had forced Kiev to fulfill its obligations. At that time, the republics understood that the clock was ticking as the Ukrainian military could wipe out the DPR and the LPR cities, so the emergency evacuation began.
“But the world prefers not to see this and starts counting from February 24,” he pointed out.
Lets revisit one of the headlines from a year ago:
Shelling in Donbass brings Europe to brink of war, 18th of February 2022, wrote Clara Weiss a year ago
On Thursday, heavy artillery shelling, including of residential areas, was reported in East Ukraine’s Donbass region. It is the most significant military escalation of the conflict between the US-funded Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists since at least last spring. News of the bombardment came just hours after an “invasion” of Ukraine by Russia, which the US claimed was supposed to take place on February 16, failed to materialize. The Kremlin has always denied that it had any such plans.
The Kremlin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said that the situation in Donbass could “at any moment” escalate “into a new eruption of war in the immediate vicinity of our borders.”
In one village in territory controlled by the Luhansk People’s Republic, a kindergarten and a school were struck. The separatists blamed the Ukrainian military, while Kiev implicated the separatists.
Without providing any evidence, UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was a “false-flag operation” by Russia designed to “discredit” the Ukrainians. For weeks, US and UK media and intelligence agencies have issued unsubstantiated allegations of a planned “false flag operation” by Russia. The allegations have been so absurd that recently even an AP reporter challenged a state department spokesman over them.
The current escalation in the Donbass can only be understood against the background of US efforts to provoke a war with Russia. Following an extraordinarily belligerent speech by US president Joe Biden on Tuesday, US and NATO officials insisted that the threat of a Russian invasion remains imminent even as Russia reportedly began withdrawing some of its troops.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken alleged on Thursday that there has been no Russian troop withdrawal (from Russian territory) and that Russian troops “are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days.” Washington-based journal Politico has now declared yet another supposed date for a Russian invasion – February 20, Clara Weiss wrote in her article a year ago, on 18th of February 2022.