Russia has called on foreigners to leave Kiev, and Ukraine claims that the threat level has not changed. Is this part of psychological warfare or is Russia really planning a new stage of the war?
Russia has called on foreigners to leave Kiev, and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has tried to calm the situation. The threat level has not changed, Kiev said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibikha invited the heads of 70 diplomatic missions in the Ukrainian capital to visit the places that were hit by Russian missiles late last week. "They saw with their own eyes the consequences of this terror, because these were attacks on civilian targets. They also saw how we work so efficiently that the affected metro station was functioning again less than a day after the attack," Sibiha said at a press conference. Now, Ukraine's top diplomat has also spoken to his Western partners with one appeal - not to succumb to Russia's blackmail attempt.
How serious are Russia's threats?
After the severe attack that Moscow carried out over the weekend, new threats are now coming from the Kremlin. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced new attacks on Kiev - in her words against "the centers where political and military decisions are made". Moscow insists that it is not attacking civilian targets. This time, Russia also directed its threats at the diplomatic corps in Ukraine, calling on European missions to withdraw from the country's capital. The European Union refused to give in to pressure.
Although Russia often makes such threats, these are probably serious, notes ARD Moscow correspondent Zilke Dietrich. According to her, the latest major attack has been repeatedly presented in Moscow as a response and has even been shown on Russian television - something unusual for the war so far. The Kremlin claims that on Friday Ukraine hit a school dormitory in the occupied Luhansk region. The plans for the upcoming strikes are presented as a kind of revenge.
The announcement of the upcoming heavy attacks on Ukraine was published in several languages on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to warn him that Moscow was launching "systematic strikes on targets in Kiev". All this suggests that these threats are serious, Dietrich commented.
Part of the Kremlin's psychological warfare
If diplomats from Western countries actually leave Kiev now, it will send a very bad signal to Ukrainians, believes former Ukrainian Minister for European Integration Ivana Klympush-Tsintsadze. She recalled to ARD that the activities of the diplomatic corps are important to Kiev - at the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, almost all diplomats left the Ukrainian capital. "This sent a very bad signal to Ukrainians. Then we felt as if we were abandoned in a moment of danger," she told ARD.
Most observers believe that Putin's threats are part of the psychological warfare - Russia wants to sow panic in Ukraine. This is related to the information in recent weeks that the Kremlin is in a weak position, believes political scientist Ihor Reiterovich. "All this comes from the fact that the situation on the front is getting worse for Russia”, he commented to the NV radio. According to the expert, Moscow is worried about the Ukrainian strikes deep into Russian territory and is now switching to a new strategy - threats and even warnings to the American and other embassies in Kiev.
Other commentators in Ukraine believe that with his official statement, Putin is declaring that he intends to commit war crimes - embassies are not legitimate military targets, and terrorizing the civilian population is a crime under international law. Political scientist Reuterovich believes that it is good that some European countries have already made it clear that they will not succumb to threats. This also means that the American president cannot take a different path than this one without this negatively affecting his reputation, the analyst believes.