After heavy shelling, tensions simmer in Eastern Ukraine as crisis deepens

With fears mounting of war in Europe, President Joe Biden prepared to gather NATO allies by phone Friday to discuss the threat to Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia planned to preside over the launches of nuclear-capable missiles Saturday in drills that will showcase the country’s most destructive weapons.

Biden’s urgent diplomacy and Putin’s show of strength illustrated the spiraling tensions between Russia and the West, which threaten to spill into all-out conflict. Fighting escalated Thursday along a volatile front line between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the type of situation that the Biden administration says Moscow could use as a pretext to launch a wider invasion.

Putin said Friday that Russia was prepared for further diplomacy but would continue to insist on far-reaching demands for “security guarantees” in Eastern Europe that the West has rejected — such as a halt to the eastward expansion of NATO and the pullback of the alliance’s forces from the region.

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“We are ready to go on the negotiating track under the condition that all questions will be considered together, without being separated from Russia’s main proposals,” Putin said in a news conference alongside close ally President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, who was visiting Moscow.

The Biden administration has said it believes that Russia is poised to invade Ukraine within days. Although Moscow insists that it has no such plans, it has vowed to mount “a tough response” if the United States and its NATO partners do not roll back their presence in Eastern Europe.

In a demonstration of strength, Russia will conduct major drills this weekend that will include the launch of ballistic and cruise missiles, the country’s defense ministry said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia’s drills will test its strategic nuclear forces, which include the land-based launchers, bombers and warships used to deliver nuclear weapons. They will involve the Black Sea Fleet, which has been engaged in large-scale exercises in the region bordering Ukraine. Putin will preside over them from a “situation center,” the Kremlin said.

The Defense Ministry said the drills were planned in advance, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that they were intended to raise tensions. But they will come at a critical juncture in the standoff over Ukraine.

As high-level diplomacy continues to compete with the military maneuvering, an uneasy calm settled over eastern Ukraine early Friday after a night punctuated by explosions and bursts of gunfire in as many as 30 villages and towns along a 250-mile stretch of land separating Ukrainian and Russia-backed forces. Although periodic exchanges of gunfire are not uncommon in the eight-year trench war, that violence was of a heightened scale.

As the events play out, officials in Russia, the United States and in Ukraine are trying to shape the narrative.

US officials said they were “watching closely” out of concern that Russia could use violence in eastern Ukraine as a pretext to invade Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that Russia planned to “manufacture a pretext for its attack,” possibly with a “so-called terrorist bombing” or “a fake, even a real attack” with chemical weapons.

Residents in areas controlled by Ukraine’s government have been stocking up on food and other supplies, and the country’s defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, on Friday sought to reassure people living in the territory held by Russia-backed separatists that they faced no threat from government forces.

He told Ukraine’s parliament that he had traveled across the region, urging people not to believe Russian propaganda that the Ukrainian government was going to attack them. His message, he said, was “Don’t be afraid” and “Ukraine is not your enemy.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Moscow was concerned about “a sharp increase in shelling in eastern Ukraine,” and he blamed Ukrainian forces for the escalation.

“The Kyiv regime has been violating its responsibilities for several years,” he said. “Every time we agree on new measures to help impose a cease-fire, Kyiv sabotages them.”