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Vladimir Putin has said there is broad public support for the invasion of Ukraine that he announced just before dawn on Thursday morning. But by evening, thousands of people in cities across Russia had defied police threats to take to central squares and protest against the military campaign.

Police had made at least 1,702 arrest in 53 Russian cities as of Thursday evening, according to the OVD-Info monitor, as they cracked down on the unsanctioned protests. Most of the arrests were made in Moscow and St Petersburg, where the crowds were largest.

The protesters chanted: No to war! as they exchanged shocked reactions to the attack on Ukraine.

In Moscow, Alexander Belov said he thought that Putin had lost his mind. I thought that we would never see a war like this in the 21st century, said Belov, who arrived early at Moscows Pushkinskaya Square to find it surrounded by police vans. It turns out we live in the Middle Ages.

The mood in Moscow was dark and sombre hours after Putin had announced that he was launching a broad military offensive targeting Ukraine.

I am embarrassed for my country. To be honest with you, I am speechless. War is always scary. We dont want this, said Nikita Golubev, a 30-year-old teacher. Why are we doing this?

His anger and hopelessness were shared by many commuting to work down central Arbat Street. At the Ukrainian culture centre just down the road, the mood was even grimmer.

The Ukrainian administrator said the centre, which aims to promote the language, traditions and identity of a country Vladimir Putin denied the legitimacy of as a modern state in his speech on Monday, would be shut for the coming period.

We are being bombed as we speak. Of course we are closed! Jesus, what is happening? the administrator, who did not want to give his name, shouted.

There were already signs that Russians were uncomfortable with Putins initial decision to recognise the two self-proclaimed republics in Donbas.

On Tuesday, Yuri Dudt, one of Russias most popular media personalities, said he did not vote for this regime and its need for an empire, and felt ashamed, in a post that received almost a million likes in 24 hours.

A fresh poll by the independent Levada Center released on Thursday showed that only 45% of Russians stood in favour of the recognition move that preceded Thursday mornings dramatic events.

I didnt think Putin would be willing to go all the way. How can we bomb Ukraine? Our countries have their disagreements, but this is not a way to solve them, said Muscovite Ksenia.

But outcries of anger were not only felt on the streets of Moscow, where the Guardian did not encounter support for the military assault.

Russias cultural and sporting elite, usually firmly behind Putin and often called upon by the president during election campaigns to gather popular support, also expressed their deep worries about Russias invasion.

Valery Meladze, arguable the countrys most beloved singer, posted an emotional video in which he begged Russia to stop the war. Today something happened that should have never happened. History will be the judge of these events. But today, I beg you, please stop the war.

Likewise, Russian football international Fyodor Smolov posted on his Instagram channel: No to War!!!

US intelligence has for months warned that Russia would seek to fabricate a major pretext before launching an invasion of Ukraine. In the end, no major false flag came, and experts now believe that Putin decided to act without gathering the backing of his own electorate.

Putin seems totally indifferent to approval on the street. Hes acting not like a politician in need of public support, but like a figure from national history books who cares only about the approval of future historians and readers, tweeted Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

The Russian leader looked to have also surprised some of Russias most prominent oligarchs, who saw their wealth tumble as the countrys financial markets collapsed.

Just on Monday, after Putin recognised the independence of the two Donbas territories, Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin-friendly oligarch who once said that he does not separate himself from the Russian state, exclaimed on his Telegram channel that war had been averted. He has since deleted the post.

On Russian state television, the invasion was framed as a defensive mission aimed at preserving Russian lives. Whats the point of a major first strike? However strange or cynical it sounds, its actually humane because it allows everyone around to prevent a large massacre. By immobilising Ukraine, life is being preserved, said pundit Vladislav Shurygin on the Channel One programme Vremya Pokazhet.

Some risked arrest on Thursday evening in order to voice their opposition to the invasion. Zhargal Rinchinov from Buryatia arrived on the square in a jacket with the inscription: No to war. If he held up a sign, he said, he would be arrested.

Everyone is scared, he said. They know if they say something bad then theyll be put in jail. So people pretend they dont notice we have started a war, so they dont have to speak up about it.

For Ukrainians, public messages of opposition to the war will come too late. The country has said that at least 40 soldiers have already been killed and many more civilians injured, as it is threatened with being overrun by a much larger military force.

Yet, sensing that a genuine large-scale pushback against war might be Ukraines best bet, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraines president, on Thursday morning urged Russians to speak up.

If the Russian authorities dont want to sit down with us to discuss peace, maybe they will sit down with you.

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Thousands join anti-war protests in Russia after Ukraine invasion - The Guardian

Russias invasion of Ukraine could have economic repercussions globally and in the United States, ramping up uncertainty, roiling commodity markets and potentially pushing up inflation as gas and food prices rise around the world.

Russia is a major producer of oil and natural gas, and the geopolitical conflict has sent prices of both sharply higher in recent weeks. It is also the worlds largest wheat exporter, and is a major food supplier to Europe.

The United States imports relatively little directly from Russia, but a commodities crunch caused by a conflict could have knock-on effects that at least temporarily drive up prices for raw materials and finished goods when much of the world, including the United States, is experiencing rapid inflation.

Global unrest could also spook American consumers, prompting them to cut back on spending and other economic activity. If the slowdown were to become severe, it could make it harder for the Federal Reserve, which is planning to raise interest rates in March, to decide how quickly and how aggressively to increase borrowing costs. Central bankers noted in minutes from their most recent meeting that geopolitical risks could cause increases in global energy prices or exacerbate global supply shortages, but also that they were a risk to the outlook for growth.

The magnitude of the potential economic fallout is unclear, but a foreign conflict could further delay a return to normalcy after two years in which the coronavirus pandemic has buffeted both the global and U.S. economies. American consumers are already contending with quickly rising prices, businesses are trying to navigate roiled supply chains and people report feeling pessimistic about their financial outlooks despite strong economic growth.

The level of economic uncertainty is going to rise, which is going to be negative for households and firms, said Maurice Obstfeld, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He noted that the effect would be felt most acutely in Europe and to a lesser degree in the United States.

A major and immediate economic implication of a showdown in Eastern Europe ties back to oil and gas. Russia produces 10 million barrels of oil a day, roughly 10 percent of global demand, and is Europes largest supplier of natural gas, which is used to fuel power plants and provide heat to homes and businesses.

The United States imports comparatively little Russian oil, but energy commodity markets are global, meaning a change in prices in one part of the world influences how much people pay for energy elsewhere.

The price of oil jumped as high as $105 a barrel on Thursday. If oil increases to $120 per barrel by the end of February, past the $95 mark it hovered around last week, inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index could climb close to 9 percent in the next couple months, instead of a currently projected peak of a little below 8 percent, said Alan Detmeister, an economist at UBS who formerly led the prices and wages section at the Fed.

It becomes a question of: How long do oil prices, natural gas wholesale prices stay elevated? he said. Thats anybodys guess.

The $120-a-barrel mark for oil is a reasonable estimate of how high prices could go, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. That would translate to roughly $4 per gallon at the pump on average, he said.

It might be difficult to determine how much of the change in energy prices is attributable to the invasion. Omair Sharif at Inflation Insights noted that oil and gas prices had already been going up this year.

I dont know when you want to start the clock on Ukraine becoming a major headline, Mr. Sharif said. Plus, from an American inflation perspective, how much the conflict matters all depends on how much the United States gets involved.

Oil may be the major story when it comes to the inflationary effects of a Russian conflict, but it is not the only one. Ukraine is also a significant producer of uranium, titanium, iron ore, steel and ammonia, and a major source of Europes arable land.

Christian Bogmans, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, said a conflict in Ukraine could further inflate global food prices, which were set to stabilize after skyrocketing last year.

Russia and Ukraine together are responsible for nearly 30 percent of global wheat exports, while Ukraine alone accounts for more than 15 percent of global corn exports, he said. And many of Ukraines growing regions for wheat and corn are near the Russian border.

The rising price of gas and fertilizer, as well as droughts and adverse weather in some regions, like the Dakotas, had already helped to push up the global price of wheat and other commodities. Ukraine is also a significant producer of barley and vegetable oil, which goes into many packaged foods.

Production might be interrupted, and shipping may be affected as well, Mr. Bogmans said. If other countries impose sanctions on Russian food items, that could further limit global supplies and inflate prices, he said.

A rising concern. Russias attack on Ukraine could cause dizzying spikes in prices for energyand food and could spook investors. Theeconomic damage from supply disruptions and economic sanctions would be severe in some countries and industries and unnoticed in others.

The cost of energy. Oil prices already are the highest since 2014, and they have risen as the conflict has escalated. Russia is the third-largest producer of oil, providing roughly one of every 10 barrels the global economy consumes.

Gas supplies. Europe gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and it is likely to be walloped with higher heating bills. Natural gas reserves are running low, and European leaders have accused Russias president, Vladimir V. Putin, of reducing supplies to gain a political edge.

Shortages of essential metals. The price of palladium, used in automotive exhaust systems and mobile phones, has been soaring amid fears that Russia, the worlds largest exporter of the metal, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, another key Russian export, has also been rising.

Financial turmoil. Global banks are bracing for the effects of sanctionsdesigned to restrict Russias access to foreign capital and limit its ability to process payments in dollars, euros and other currencies crucial for trade. Banks are also on alert for retaliatory cyberattacks by Russia.

But because food costs make up a small portion of inflation, that may not matter as much to overall price data, Mr. Detmeister at UBS said. It is also hard to guess exactly how import prices would shape up because of the potential for currency movements.

If the conflict drives global uncertainty and causes investors to pour money into dollars, pushing up the value of the currency, it could make United States imports cheaper.

Other trade risks loom. Unrest at the nexus of Europe and Asia could pose a risk for supply chains that have been roiled by the pandemic.

Phil Levy, the chief economist at Flexport, said that Russia and Ukraine were far less linked into global supply chains than China, but that conflict in the area could disrupt flights from Asia to Europe. That could pose a challenge for industries that move products by air, like electronics, fast fashion and even automakers, he said at an event at the National Press Foundation on Feb. 9.

Air has been a means of getting around supply chain problems, Mr. Levy said. If your factory was going to shut because you dont have a key part, you might fly in that key part.

Some companies may not yet realize their true exposure to the crisis.

Victor Meyer, the chief operating officer of Supply Wisdom, which helps companies analyze their supply chains for risk, said some companies were surprised by the extent of their exposure to the region during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, when it annexed Crimea.

Mr. Meyer noted that if he were a chief security officer of a company with ties to Ukraine, I would militate rather strongly to unwind my exposure.

There could also be other indirect effects on the economy, including rattling consumer confidence.

Households are sitting on cash stockpiles and probably could afford higher prices at the pump, but climbing energy costs are likely to make consumers unhappy when prices overall are already climbing and economic sentiment has swooned.

The hit would be easily absorbed, but it would make consumers even more miserable, and we have to assume that a war in Europe would depress confidence directly, too, Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote in a Feb. 15 note.

Another risk to American economic activity may be underrated, Mr. Obstfeld said: the threat of cyberattack. Russia could respond to sanctions from the United States with digital retaliation, roiling digital life at a time when the internet has become central to economic existence.

The Russians are the best in the world at this, he said. And we dont know the extent to which they have burrowed into our systems.

Originally posted here:
How Russias Invasion of Ukraine Could Affect the U.S. Economy - The New York Times

Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya raises his phone and shakes it toward the Russian representative, imploring him to call off the war. Screen shot/C-SPAN hide caption

Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya raises his phone and shakes it toward the Russian representative, imploring him to call off the war.

Moments after Russia announced the invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian representative to the United Nations launched an intense, last-ditch call for Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war.

At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York Wednesday night, Ukraine's U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya held up his smartphone and shook it toward his Russian counterpart, demanding he put an end the invasion right then and there.

"Call Putin, call [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov to stop aggression," Kyslytsya implored in his speech fully in English (full text below). And at the end of his address, he warned: "There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, Ambassador."

Russia happens to hold the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council, so its ambassador to the U.N., Vassily Nebenzia, was chairing over a litany of charged speeches by member states against Russia.

Kyslytsya said Nebenzia should hand the Security Council presidency over to a "legitimate member."

Here is the full text of the Ukrainian ambassador's Wednesday night address at the U.N. Security Council.

Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya: Distinguished members of the Security Council, Secretary-General, Undersecretary,

Before I try to deliver parts of the statement that I came here with tonight most of it is already useless, since 10 p.m. New York time I would like to cite Article 4 of the U.N. Charter. And it says:

Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.

Russia is not able to carry out any of the obligations. The ambassador of the Russian Federation three minutes ago confirmed that his president declared a war on my country. So before I read parts of my statement, I would like to avail the presence of the secretary-general and request the secretary-general to distribute among the members of the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly the legal memos by the legal council of the United Nations dated December 1991, and in particular, the legal memo dated 19th of December, 1991. The one that we've been trying to get out of the secretariat for a very long time and were denied to get it.

The Article 4, paragraph 2 of the charter reads:

The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

Mr. Secretary-General, please instruct the secretariat to distribute among the members of the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly a decision by the Security Council dated December 1991 that recommends that the Russian Federation can be a member of this organization, as well as a decision by the General Assembly dated December 1991 where the General Assembly welcomes the Russian Federation to this organization.

It would be a miracle if the secretariat is able to produce such decisions.

There is nothing in the Charter of the United Nations about continuity, as a sneaky way to get into the organization.

So when I was coming here an hour ago or so, I was intending to ask the Russian ambassador to confirm, on the record, that the Russian troops will not start firing at Ukrainians today and go ahead with the offensive. It became useless 48 minutes. Because about 48 minutes ago, your president declared war on Ukraine.

So now I would like to ask the ambassador of the Russian Federation to say on the record that at this very moment your troops do not shell and bomb Ukrainian cities, that your troops do not move in the territory of Ukraine.

You have a smartphone, you can call Lavrov right now. We can make a pause to let you go out and call him.

If you are not in a position to give an affirmative answer, the Russian Federation ought to relinquish responsibilities of the president of the Security Council, pass these responsibilities of a legitimate member of the Security Council, a member that is respectful of the charter. And I ask the members of the Security Council to convene an emergency meeting immediately and consider all necessary draft decisions to stop the war.

You declared the war. It is the responsibility of this body to stop the war.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine's ambassador to the U.N.

Because it's too late, my dear colleagues, to speak about de-escalation. Too late. The Russian declared the war on the record.

(He raises his smartphone and shakes it, gesturing toward the Russian ambassador.)

Should I play the video of your president? Ambassador, shall I do that right now? You can confirm it.

(The Russian ambassador begins to speak to answer him.)

Do not interrupt me, please. Thank you.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia: Then don't ask me questions when you are speaking. Proceed with your statement.

Kyslytsya: Anyway. You declared the war. It is the responsibility of this body to stop the war. So I call on every one of you to do everything possible to stop the war.

Or should I play the video with your president declaring the war?

Thank you very much.

Nebenzia: I must say that I thank the representative of Ukraine for his statement and questions I wasn't planning to answer them, because I've already said all I know at this point. Waking up Minister Lavrov at this time is not something I plan to do. He said the information that we have will be something we provide.

(Later in the meeting)

Kyslytsya: Well as I said, relinquish your duties as the chair. Call Putin, call Lavrov to stop aggression. And I welcome the decision of some members of this council to meet as soon as possible to consider the necessary decision that would condemn the aggression that you will launch on my people. There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell. Ambassador.

Nebenzia: I wanted to say in conclusion that we aren't being aggressive against the Ukrainian people, but against the junta that is in power in Kyiv.

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Read the impassioned plea from Ukraine's U.N. ambassador to Russia to stop the war - NPR

Ive also spoken with Defense Secretary [Lloyd] Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. [Mark] Milley about preparations for additional moves, should they become necessary to protect our NATO allies and support the greatest military alliance in the history of the world, NATO, he said.

Biden added that troops wont be going to Ukraine and be engaged in the conflict, but instead will be sent to reassure NATO allies.

The move came as the U.S. and its allies imposed a range of sanctions on the Russian economy and banking system, and as Russian troops pressed the fight in Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon Thursday, a senior DoD official said Moscows ultimate goal in invading Ukraine is decapitating the government and installing a Russian-backed government in Kyiv, a senior U.S. Defense Department official said Thursday.

In a multi-pronged assault that began just before dawn, Russian forces launched over 100 ballistic missiles at military targets, including airfields and ammunition depots, across the country.

Ground forces and aircraft have also breached Ukraines borders from the east near the city of Kharkiv, the south around Odessa, and the north from Belarus, an assault that included airstrikes and helicopter assaults.

In response, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday gave the authority for U.S. Gen. Tod Wolters, NATOs Supreme Allied Commander Europe, to call up the 40,000-strong NATO Response Force.

A NATO official told POLITICO that Wolters has not yet decided to call up the force, which would trigger the activation of 8,500 additional U.S. troops to join the larger unit. Wolters wanted the authority early in order to move quickly once he saw the need to activate and deploy the force.

In a speech in Brussels, Stoltenberg said the alliance had decided to activate our defense plans, at the request of our top military commander, General Tod Wolters, which would enable us to deploy capabilities and forces, including the NATO Response Force, to where they are needed.

A U.S. military official in Europe directly involved in military planning said he also expects requests for more forces from the United States in the coming hours and days to beef up NATO deterrence efforts.

NATO is making plans, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. If they activate those, then the U.S. posture is to contribute a whole bunch of stuff. Well see in the next day or so how that plays out.

Its all likely to happen very quickly; the official described the dispatch in the last 24 hours of additional fighter aircraft to the Baltic nations of Estonia and Lithuania, as well as Romania, as pretty freakin fast.

The additional forces would most likely deploy to NATOs Eastern European alliance members to assist with humanitarian missions should they be needed. Elements of the force were activated in August 2021 to assist with the rapid withdrawal from Kabul, Afghanistan, once the Taliban took control of the city.

On the Polish border, a stream of civilians fleeing the fighting in Ukraine has started trickling through checkpoints, with more expected in the coming days. A second DoD official told POLITICO that the 5,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, rushed to Poland in recent weeks, are not taking part in that humanitarian mission, but will train with Polish forces and deter any potential Russian move into Poland.

Social media has been flooded since the early morning hours with videos of burning tanks and armored vehicles from both sides, as well as casualties and captured troops. The Ukrainian government has claimed to have shot down seven Russian aircraft, along with a number of helicopters.

The Pentagons early assessment is that the Russian operation is still in its early stages, and not all Russian troops arrayed around Ukraines borders have moved in. The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a fluid situation, didnt cut corners when laying out the larger picture.

We havent seen a conventional move like this, nation-state to nation-state, since World War II, certainly nothing on this size and scope and scale, they said.

The official would not rule out the repositioning of more U.S. troops inside Europe, or more coming from the U.S. to bolster NATO allies Poland, Latvia Lithuania and Estonia, which border Russia and Belarus.

The military official in Europe also said that the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine continues, but it has become more challenging.

We had pretty robust ISR over Ukraine up until yesterday, the official said, using the acronym for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. We were supporting them with as much ISR as we could, which was a lot. As soon as the Russians did what they did, we had to get out of the way.

But the official said U.S. air and space commanders believe they can still gather significant intelligence on the Russian invasion.

It depends on how high over Ukraine you want to be, the official said. If you are talking [satellites in] low-Earth orbit, you can see a lot of stuff. He also cited the U-2 spy plane, which can fly pretty high.

As for most other piloted aircraft, thats a no go due the risk of being targeted by Russian anti-aircraft missiles or combat planes, the official said. But we can get pretty close with unmanned a little bit more risk tolerance for that.

One of the things we dont want to do, the official added, is provoke a conflict with the Russians directly. But we can get a pretty good look.

Its not clear, however, if Western powers might be able to continue to supply military or humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, given the fighting around the Kyiv airport, and the heavy damage taken at other regional airstrips. The Ukrainian port at Odessa has also come under attack, potentially holding the Ukrainian navy in place, and the Russian overland assault from Belarus could effectively seal off the western part of the country, making land routes dangerous.

The official said the U.S. is looking to continue to find ways to provide them both lethal and non lethal assistance, but admitted that some of the methods [that you do] are going to have to change now.

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Pentagon sending 7000 more troops to Germany as fighting rages in Ukraine - POLITICO

Follow the latest news on Russias invasion of Ukraine.

SLAVIANSK, Ukraine Russian mercenaries with experience fighting in Syria and Libya have covertly trickled into two rebel territories in eastern Ukraine, helping to lay the groundwork for war, according to two senior European security officials.

The mercenaries, which so far number about 300, are with the Russian paramilitary group Wagner and arrived in the separatist enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk wearing civilian clothes, according to the European officials. Western intelligence services have tracked them leaving Libya and Syria and arriving in Russian-controlled Crimea, from where they have filtered into the rebel territories, one of the officials said.

Their numbers are tiny compared to the estimated 190,000 troops that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has placed around Ukraines border as he threatens to wage what many fear could be the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.

But the presence of Wagner fighters is another ominous sign of the approach of war, and raises the possibility that Mr. Putin may follow a playbook used in 2014, when the Kremlin deployed Russian mercenaries, mostly veterans of the Russian military, to augment the forces of rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine.

The precise purpose of the mercenaries is a subject of debate. One of the officials said the mercenaries had been placed in the rebel territories to engage in sabotage and stage false flag operations intended to make it seem as if Ukrainian forces were attacking civilian targets.

But the second senior official, who is with Ukraines military, said the mercenaries began arriving two months ago and were primarily brought in to fill out the ranks of the separatist forces, to make it seem like local fighters were leading the charge. The Ukrainian official, interviewed on Wednesday, said it was Russian intelligence services that were responsible for sabotage.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss sensitive intelligence findings.

Ukraine is at a moment of intensifying anxiety. For months, even as Russian troops have amassed on their borders, Ukrainians have been largely sanguine and their government mostly dismissive of increasingly alarmist rhetoric from the West that a Russian invasion could be at hand.

But the mood appears to have changed dramatically almost overnight.

Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has mobilized military reservists and declared a state of emergency. Columns of military vehicles including tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks carrying light artillery pieces have appeared on Ukrainian roads.

In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, less than a few dozen miles from Russian forces across the border, soldiers dressed in body armor and carrying automatic weapons had set up checkpoints on Wednesday and were checking cars, seemingly at random.

This week, Ukraines defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, wrote a blunt open letter to Ukraines troops, warning them to prepare for the worst.

Ahead lies a difficult test, he wrote. There will be losses. You will have to go through pain and overcome fear and despondency.

Last month, the White House warned that the Russian military was sending saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to stage events U.S. officials said could be used to fabricate a pretext to war. That warning appears to have come to fruition, at least according to Ukrainian officials, who pointed to a recent spate of curious incidents, including the detonation of a bomb in the vehicle of a rebel security official, and a bizarre report by Russian government media that five Ukrainian soldiers were killed trying to launch a sneak attack across the Russian border. Ukrainian officials have said each of these incidents was fabricated. It was not clear whether any mercenaries were involved in these episodes.

Feb. 24, 2022, 6:00 p.m. ET

The use of mercenaries is regarded as a key feature of the Kremlins military strategy around the world. But the strategy was born and honed in Ukraine, beginning in 2014, when Moscow sought to disguise its involvement in supporting what it publicly was calling a popular, democratic uprising against Ukraines government.

What is at the root of this invasion? Russia considers Ukraine within its natural sphere of influence, and it has grown unnerved at Ukraines closeness with the West and the prospect that the country might join NATO or the European Union. While Ukraine is part of neither, it receives financial and military aid from the United States and Europe.

Are these tensions just starting now? Antagonism between the two nations has been simmeringsince 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, after an uprising in Ukraine replaced their Russia-friendly president with a pro-Western government. Then, Russia annexed Crimeaand inspired a separatist movement in the east.A cease-fire was negotiated in 2015, but fighting has continued.

How has Ukraine responded? On Feb. 23, Ukraine declared a 30-day state of emergencyas cyberattacks knocked out government institutions. Following the beginning of the attacks, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraines president, declared martial law. The foreign minister called the attacks a full-scale invasion and called on the world to stop Putin.

The involvement of mercenaries, as well as regular Russian soldiers, was never easy to hide. Dead and wounded fighters turned up at hospitals in the eastern Donbas region with Russian passports. The bodies of young men, riddled with shrapnel, would unexpectedly turn up in their home villages deep within Russia with no explanation of how they died.

Moscow has consistently denied that professional Russian soldiers have taken part in any fighting in Ukraine, though the United States and Ukraine say that tens of thousands of Russian troops have been deployed over the years to fight in the separatist enclaves, even before the recent military buildup.

But Russia has acknowledged the participation of what it calls volunteers, saying they choose to spend their holidays assisting fellow Slavs fighting against what Moscow has called a fascist regime in Ukraine.

Wagner is the best-known of an array of Russian mercenary groups, which over the years have become more formalized, acting more like Western military contractors.

Wagners fighters have gained military experience in wars in the Middle East and serve as security advisers to various governments, including in the Central African Republic, Sudan and, most recently, Mali. Though they are loosely tied to the Russian military, they operate at a distance, which has allowed the Kremlin to deny responsibly when fighters engage in unseemly behavior.

In 2017, the Trump administration sanctioned Dmitri Utkin, the commander of the Wagner group, for his role in recruiting soldiers to join separatist forces in Ukraine. In 2021, a United Nations report found that mercenaries from Wagner based in the Central African Republic had killed civilians, looted homes and fatally shot worshipers at a mosque.

Several years earlier, Wagner fighters in Syria, together with Syrian pro-government forces, launched a massive artillery barrage against American commandos at a desert redoubt, apparently in an attempt to seize oil and gas fields the Americans were protecting. In response, the Americans called in airstrikes that resulted in 200 to 300 deaths.

In both cases, the Russian government denied involvement.

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Russian Mercenaries Covertly Entered Separatist Areas of Ukraine - The New York Times