Airlines canceled or diverted flights to Ukraine due to growing fears of an imminent military invasion by Russia despite intense diplomatic efforts that will continue this week with visits to both countries by the German head of government.
Before his visits, the German leader, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, reiterated today that Germany will impose “tough” sanctions on Russia with immediate application if Western predictions that Moscow will invade Ukraine come true.
Scholz will meet tomorrow in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, with President Volodimir Zelensky, and a day later he will be received in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as part of intense diplomatic efforts to try to avoid the worst.
The United States and NATO say Russia has deployed more than 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine and is preparing to invade its neighboring former Soviet republic, with whose nationalist, pro-Western government it is at loggerheads.
Russia denies having plans to invade Ukraine , but has used the crisis to demand guarantees from the United States that Ukraine will not join NATO, something it sees as a threat, and that the alliance will reduce its troops in Eastern European countries.
Washington and NATO rejected the demand.
In an hour-long telephone conversation, US President Joe Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday that invading Ukraine will cause “widespread human suffering” and will entail a “decisive response, with severe costs.”
The conversation came a day after US national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned that US intelligence showed the Russian invasion could begin within days.
The Dutch airline KLM has canceled all flights to Ukraine until further notice, the company said last night.
In 2014, a Malaysian airline passenger plane that had left the Netherlands was shot down in 2014 while flying over an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed Russian-speaking separatist militias.
All 298 people on the plane died, including 198 citizens of the Netherlands, the former Holland.
Ukrainian charter company SkyUp said a flight from Madeira, Portugal, to Kiev was diverted to Moldova’s capital Chisinau on Monday.
The company said in a statement that the decision was made after it was banned from flying into Ukrainian airspace by the Irish company that rented the plane, the DPA news agency reported.
Ukraine said today that it will not close its airspace.
“Ukrainian airspace remains open and the state is working to prevent risks to airlines,” the Infrastructure Ministry said in a statement posted on Facebook.
Most airlines continue to operate, according to the Ministry, adding that currently 29 international airlines operate flights from 34 countries.
The United States and NATO say they will not send troops to Ukraine to fight a Russian invasion, but Washington and its allies have threatened sanctions on Moscow that could have a major impact on energy supplies and the world economy.
“In the event of military aggression against Ukraine, which would endanger its sovereignty and territorial integrity, this would lead to harsh sanctions, which we have carefully prepared and which we will be able to apply immediately with our allies in Europe and in NATO,” Scholz told reporters today. journalists in Berlin.
Last week, Scholz met with Biden in Washington to discuss the crisis.
Before journalists together with Scholz in the White House, Biden affirmed that a pipeline built by Russia to bring gas to Europe through Germany will not come into operation if Moscow invades Ukraine, something that would also harm the European Union (EU).
Also last week, French President Emmanuel Macron met with Putin in Moscow and with Zelensky in Kiev to try to defuse tensions.
The United States has already announced plans to evacuate almost all of its embassy staff in Ukraine and urged all its citizens to leave the country.
The UK, other European countries and Japan have asked their citizens to do the same.
Australia today temporarily suspended operations at its embassy in Kiev “given the deteriorating security situation,” Foreign Minister Marise Payne said.
Russia and Ukraine have been at odds since 2014, when the then Moscow-friendly Ukrainian government was overthrown by a wave of protests and replaced by the current one.
Shortly after, Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and supported armed militias in eastern Ukraine in rejection of the new government in Kiev.
More than 14,000 people have since been killed in fighting between the Ukrainian army and militias.
In 2015, France and Germany helped reach the so-called Minsk Agreements, signed in that city, the Belarusian capital.
The pact ended major fighting, but efforts to reach a final political understanding have stalled, and skirmishes are common.
However, Ukraine has not implemented key parts of the agreement, and Russia has accused it of reneging on its commitments.