Is Vladimir Putin preparing to invade Ukraine?
As Russian soldiers continue to amass near the Ukrainian border shots are already being fired and there are fears that President Putin is planning an invasion, says Luke Harding
Ukrainian soldiers are digging themselves into trenches along their country’s border with Russia as tensions mount and fears of an invasion ordered by Moscow continue to grow.
The Guardian’s senior foreign correspondent Luke Harding tells Michael Safi that the conditions on the ground would be familiar to soldiers more than a century ago in the first world war: mud, corrugated metal sheeting and barbed wire. But in the skies above, high-tech drones whiz around surveying the landscape and threatening those below.
The standoff in eastern Ukraine is the most tense since Russian-backed forces took control of parts of the country in 2014. Now President Vladimir Putin appears to be threatening the region once more. Luke finds that among the Ukrainian soldiers there is a sense of calm acceptance of what might lie ahead – coupled with the grim reality of a death toll that is steadily climbing week by week from snipers and improvised explosive devices. Since 2014, 14,000 people have been killed.
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