February 21st,2022
1. Ceasefire violations
OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) in its Daily Report #39/2022 issued on 19 February 2022 has recognized that based on information from the Monitoring Teams as of 19:30 EET 18 February 2022: (a) in Donetsk region, the SMM recorded 591 ceasefire violations, including 553 explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 222 ceasefire violations in the region; (b) in Luhansk region, the SMM recorded 975 ceasefire violations, including 860 explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 648 ceasefire violations in the region.
By 21:00 Moscow time February 21 the OSCE SMM failed to place the next daily report at the OSCE website. The reason has not been announced.
“Only in recent days, the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has fired more than 1,700 mortars and shells into residential areas. Heavy artillery, mortars, grenade launchers and tanks are hitting us. People are dying,” the head of the DPR said in a statement.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksy Reznikov announced that Kiev has supplied Ukrainian Armed Forces deployed in Donbas near line of disengagement Western weapons and ammunition delivered by a number of NATO countries to Ukraine in violation of the 1993 OSCE decision not to sell weapons into the conflict zones.
https://russian.rt.com/ussr/article/965376-donbass-ukraina-obostrenie-konflikt-rossiya
2. Genocide in Donbas
February 21 Ukrainian Armed Forces have fired 618 shells and projectiles against 22 populated areas in DPR and LPR.
On Monday, February 21 officials in Donetsk declared a state of emergency, saying that their pump/filtration stations had stopped working amid the shelling and that they were unable to distribute potable water. “In connection with intensive artillery strikes … over the past few days, there have been a series of breaches of the normal operation of systems of life support,” officials stated. According to them, more than 21,000 residents had been left without potable water. Over 21,000 Donbass local residents, 50 social buildings, hospitals in Dokuchaevsk and Olenevka in DPR have been cut off to potable water supply, the DPR Emergency Ministry said.
Kiev stopped potable water supply to Lugansk area.
https://www.rt.com/russia/550106-donetsk-request-help-military-moscow/
Around 26 120-mm caliber mines were launched at Petrivkse on Monday morning, according to DPR. The settlement of Staromykhailivka was also shelled: a total of fourteen 120-mm caliber mines were launched at the village at around 07:00 am local time (05:00 GMT). Both of these locations were also shelled over the weekend.
https://t.me/sputniknewsus/7410?single
Two schools have been hit in Donetsk. In one of them # 105 four classrooms have been destroyed, glasses in its 65 windows shattered.
One civilian and one miliary man were killed, three civilians were wounded and two soldiers were shell-shocked in Donetsk after shelling from the Ukrainian side.
3. Donbas refugees
Around 68,000 residents of the two republics have crossed the border into Russia's Rostov Region as part of evacuation amid violent Ukrainian troops drive into Donbas, Acting Russian Emergencies Minister Alexander Chupriyan said on Monday.
4. Ukrainian armed attacks on Russia: new risky tendency
1. Monday, February 21 Russia’s armed forces have reported that its troops opened fire on a “Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group” that attempted to cross into the country. In a statement issued on Monday, military chiefs said that “a unit of the Southern Military District, alongside a border patrol by the Russian Federal Security Service, prevented a sabotage and reconnaissance group from violating the Russian state border from the territory of Ukraine.” Five Ukrainian soldiers were killed, and one soldier detained. No Russian servicemen were injured during the firefight. The ministry added that during the attack, two combat infantry vehicles belonging to Kiev’s armed forces crossed into Russian territory in an attempt to rescue the alleged saboteurs. Both vehicles have been destroyed by anti-tank fire.
https://tass.ru/proisshestviya/13784397?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop
2. A border post along the border between Russia and Ukraine (150 m away from the border) has been hit by a projectile launched from Ukraine Monday, February 21, 2022 at 9:50 AM local time, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has reported. It did not lead to any casualties. "On 21 February at 09:50 AM [06:50 GMT], a projectile fired from the territory of Ukraine fully destroyed the office of border patrols of the Russian FSB border department in the Rostov region, located at a distance of about 150 meters [490 feet] from the Russian-Ukrainian border,” the FSB said in a statement.
https://russian.rt.com/ussr/article/965376-donbass-ukraina-obostrenie-konflikt-rossiya
3. February 19 around 5:00 AM local time Tarasovsky District, Rostov Region, a secondary-duty road was hit located one kilometer deep into Russian territory by two Ukrainian shells. Nobody was hurt.
4. The same day at в 9:50 Ukrainian shell hit the same area on the Russian territory located at 150 meters from Russian-Ukrainian border.
https://www.interfax.ru/russia/823145
5. Recognition of two republics by Russia
February 21, the leaders of DPR and LPR have appealed to the Kremlin to recognize them as “independent, democratic, and as social state based on the rule of law”. Both republics asked Russia to sign Treaties on Friendship and Cooperation with the provision on military technical cooperation with them.
https://russian.rt.com/ussr/news/965681-pushil-rossiya-dnr?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop
At the Russian Security Council special session held February 21 in the evening, all participants have supported the notion to recognize their independence.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made a critical remark to President Zelensky’s intention to regain nuclear weapons. He said that Kiev amassed 59.3 thousand troops near DPR and LPR.
Speaking at the end of the session, during which government ministers and the head of the country’s security agencies claimed that the humanitarian situation across the border is worsening, Putin promised to make a decision the same day.
In the evening of February 21, Putin informed the leaders of Germany and France about the debates at the Special Security Council session.
In a very detailed TV address to the nation made late evening February 21, Vladimir Putin made critical remarks on Kiev desire to produce nuclear weapons and conducting offensive military drills with NATO, offering overflight rights for the U.S. heavy strategic bombers in the Ukrainian . space. After that he has signed a decree on immediate recognition of DPR and LPR. Treaties on Friendship and Cooperation have been signed between Russia and DPR and LPR. Putin demanded that Kiev should promptly stop military attacks on Donbas.
It is obvious that the U.S. and NATO’s noise over ‘Russian imminent attack versus Ukraine’ has been invented by them to give Kiev much broader possibility to get huge amount of Western weapons and to smash Donbas, and to cover up Ukrainian overt large-scale aggression against civilians in Donbas with an intension to massacre them all.
Written by Vladimir P. Kozin
