Ukraine declares a state of emergency throughout the country, except in Lugansk and Donetsk

The door to diplomacy in the resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict seems to be closing a little more with each passing second. Following the recognition of the republics of Lugansk and Donetsk by Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of his top government, the escalation of tensions within the international community has, almost inevitably, precipitated even further. Indeed, with Israeli support for Ukraine's territorial integrity, every country in the world has already expressed its support for one side or the other in the Eastern European crisis.

In this situation, Ukraine is pressing ahead with preparations to deal with the worst-case scenario. Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council (NSCD) has made public the declaration of a state of emergency in the territory of Ukraine - with the exception of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk - although this measure will still have to be ratified by the Verkhovna Rada (the country's parliament) in the coming days. The state of emergency will be in force for 30 days, although it could be extended for a further 30 days. 

The CSND's decision comes in response to what the Ukrainian authorities have described as Russian "armed aggression". The Kremlin's recognition of the two pro-Russian separatist regions is a total burial of the Minsk agreements and their main premises. These premises, however, have been violated by both sides from almost the very beginning of the treaty's validity. 

Along these lines, the Kiev parliament has also approved a draft law to allow its citizens to possess firearms "in self-defence". 

Meanwhile, in the race to strengthen his troops on the border, President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced the signing of a decree calling up all reservists between the ages of 18 and 60 in the country, who are expected to deploy to the Donbas region and nearby border lines by next week. "The decision has been taken to increase the joint forces involved in operations in eastern Ukraine with additional units," Oleksandr Fatsévich, the number two of the Ukrainian National Police, told a press conference.

Ukraine currently has 250,000 active military personnel, plus some 200,000 reservists, and despite the call-up, Zelensky has ruled out a general mobilisation of the armed forces and security forces for the time being. 

Meanwhile, according to estimates by Michael Carpenter, US ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Moscow's units stationed on the Ukrainian border, Crimea and Belarus could number between 169,000 and 190,000 troops. However, despite the unanimous authorisation of the Russian Federation Council for the use of the Armed Forces on foreign territory, the Secretary General of the Council of the 'United Russia' party, Andrey Turchak, has declared in Donetsk that "the Russian military will only enter the Ukrainian region of Donbas if the separatist leaders ask them to do so". 

The international community, on the other hand, has not been slow to impose sanctions against Moscow. In an appearance at the White House yesterday, Joe Biden announced one of the first packages of punitive measures, ranging from the interruption of "sovereign debt financing channels" to a ban on trading with US citizens. The UK, which announced on Wednesday that it was sending new arms shipments to Ukraine, also joined the wave of sanctions yesterday, as did the EU, which announced the entry into force of its package of measures today.  

According to a list published by the Spanish daily El País, the main people affected by the package of sanctions of the 27 would be a large number of members of Putin's government, including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of staff, Anton Vaino, the top echelons of the army, important figures in the business world and leaders of the propaganda apparatus that has driven the information campaigns in relation to the Ukrainian crisis. The latter included the editor-in-chief of the English-language RT television channel, Margarita Simonyan, and the director of communications at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova. In addition, members of the blacklist, which includes more than 20 officials, will be banned from entering any European country.

In addition to targeting important Russian personalities and the country's sovereign debt, the economic sanctions have also reached three of the main banks linked to Moscow: Promsvyazbank, a state-owned entity in charge of financing the country's defence sector; Rossiya Bank, which specialises in the assets of high-ranking Kremlin officials; and Veb.Rf.  

However, Kiev has continued to call for new and tougher sanctions against Russia, advocating "hitting harder" and "hitting harder" to "stop Putin", as Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba put it. "To stop further aggression by Putin, we call on partners to impose more sanctions now," he urged, a call that international analysts have questioned. Experts have explained that if all possible sanctions against the Kremlin were to be imposed now, the posture and ability of Western allies to act would be compromised in the face of a possible new Russian attack. 

In line with the rest of its European allies and neighbours, Berlin yesterday put an end to a position that has been described by other powers as vague and ambiguous. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a freeze on certification projects for the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a decision that has sparked concerns about the rising price of natural gas - of which Russia was one of the main suppliers. 

However, Robert Habeck, Germany's finance minister, has assured that the country has enough gas for the remainder of the winter, and has pledged to compensate German citizens and businesses for the rising cost of gas. "We will alleviate the temporary rise in the price of gas and its burden on citizens and businesses," Habeck said. In this sense, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, denounced that "Russia has used energy in recent months, if not in recent years, to put pressure not only on Ukraine but also on the European Union", according to the EFE news agency. 

"Let there be no doubt: there will be a strong response to these sanctions, not necessarily symmetrical, but well-calculated and painful for the United States," the Russian Foreign Ministry has warned, in response to the numerous sanctions packages the Kremlin now faces. "Sanctions are not effective in solving problems. So China will not impose unilateral sanctions on Russia," said the People's Republic of China, one of the Kremlin's main allies.

Moreover, the effectiveness of the measures taken by the US and European powers is uncertain. Since the sanctions imposed after the annexation of Crimea, Moscow has been able to restructure its economy, making it more resistant to the international community's economic punishments. This is what the chief economist for Russia at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW) told EFE, referring to the Kremlin's conservative fiscal policy, the strengthening of its currencies and the diversification of its trade portfolio as protection against sanctions. 

International - primarily Western - pressure has prompted Moscow to begin evacuating its diplomatic staff in Ukraine, as reported by Russia's TASS news agency. "The evacuation of staff has already begun", sources at the Russian embassy in Kiev reported. In fact, according to videos posted on social media - and in a theory that has yet to be confirmed - Russian workers at the Odessa consulate and embassy in Kiev may be tearing up and burning Kremlin diplomatic documents.