A Ukrainian serviceman pauses while walking to a frontline position outside Popasna, in the Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine
Amid Russian invasion fears, a Ukrainian civilian was killed on Monday in a shelling attack on a government-held village, news agency AFP reported. This death is the first official civilian casualty of the year in Ukraine’s eight-year separatist conflict. Over 14,000 people died during the movement earlier.
The death comes at a crucial time of the West’s fears of Russia invading the neighboring country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had also said that he would decide today, (Monday, February 21) on whether or not to recognize the independence of Ukraine’s separatist regions, tearing up the 2015 peace plan for ending the war in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has massed an estimated 150,000 troops on three sides of Ukraine, a western-looking democracy that has defied Moscow’s attempts to pull it back into its orbit.
Moscow denies it has any plans to attack but wants Western guarantees that NATO won’t allow Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to join as members. It has also demanded the alliance halt weapons deployments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe — demands flatly rejected by the West.
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