MOSCOW, Feb 24, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin
announced a "military operation" in Ukraine on Thursday and called on
soldiers there to lay down their arms, defying Western outrage and global
appeals not to launch a war.

   Putin made a surprise statement on television to declare his intentions.

   "I have made the decision of a military operation," he said shortly before
6:00am (0300 GMT) in Moscow, as he vowed retaliation against anyone who
interfered.

   He also called on the Ukraine military to lay down its arms.

   His statement came after the Kremlin said rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine
had asked Moscow for military help against Kyiv.

   In response, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky made an emotional
late-night appeal to Russians not to support a "major war in Europe".

   Speaking Russian, Zelensky said that the people of Russia are being lied
to about Ukraine and that the possibility of war also "depends on you".

   "Who can stop (the war)? People. These people are among you, I am sure,"
he said.

   Zelensky said he had tried to call Putin but there was "no answer, only
silence", adding that Moscow now had around 200,000 soldiers near Ukraine's
borders.

   Earlier the separatist leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk sent separate
letters to Putin, asking him to "help them repel Ukraine's aggression",
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

   The two letters were published by Russian state media and were both dated
February 22.

   Their appeals came after Putin recognised their independence and signed
friendship treaties with them that include defence deals.

   Tens of thousands of Russian troops are stationed near Ukraine's borders,
and the West had said for days that an attack was imminent.

   - 'Moment of peril' -

   Putin has defied a barrage of international criticism over the crisis,
with some Western leaders saying he was no longer rational.

   His announcement of the military operation came ahead of a last-ditch
summit involving European Union leaders in Brussels planned for Thursday.

   The 27-nation bloc had also imposed sanctions on Russia's defence minister
Sergei Shoigu and high-ranking figures including the commanders of Russia's
army, navy and air force, another part of the wave of Western punishment
after Putin sought to rewrite Ukraine's borders.

   The United Nations Security Council met late Wednesday for its second
emergency session in three days over the crisis, with a personal plea there
by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Putin going unheeded.

   "President Putin, stop your troops from attacking Ukraine, give peace a
chance, too many people have already died," Guterres said.

   The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, warned
that an all-out Russian invasion could displace five million people,
triggering a new European refugee crisis.

   Before Putin's announcement, Ukraine had urged its approximately three
million citizens living in Russia to leave.

   "We are united in believing that the future of European security is being
decided right now, here in our home, in Ukraine," President Zelensky said
during a joint media appearance with the visiting leaders of Poland and
Lithuania.

   Western capitals said Russia had amassed 150,000 troops in combat
formations on Ukraine's borders with Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied
Crimea and on warships in the Black Sea.

   Ukraine has around 200,000 military personnel and Wednesday's call up
could see up to 250,000 reservists aged between 18 and 60 receive their
mobilisation papers.

   Moscow's total forces are much larger -- around a million active-duty
personnel -- and have been modernised and re-armed in recent years.

   - High cost of war -

   But Ukraine has received advanced anti-tank weapons and some drones from
NATO members. More have been promised as the allies try to deter a Russian
attack or at least make it costly.

   Shelling had intensified in recent days between Ukrainian forces and
Russia-backed separatists -- a Ukrainian soldier was killed on Wednesday, the
sixth in four days -- and civilians living near the front were fearful.

   Dmitry Maksimenko, a 27-year-old coal miner from government-held
Krasnogorivka, told AFP that he was shocked when his wife came to tell him
that Putin had recognised the two Russian-backed separatist enclaves.

   "She said: 'Have you heard the news?'. How could I have known? There's no
electricity, never mind internet. I don't know what is going to happen next,
but to be honest, I'm afraid," he said.

   In a Russian village around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the border, AFP
reporters saw military equipment including rocket launchers, howitzers and
fuel tanks mounted on trains stretching for hundreds of metres.

   Russia has long demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining the
NATO alliance and that US troops pull out from Eastern Europe.

   Speaking to journalists, Putin on Tuesday set out a number of stringent
conditions if the West wanted to de-escalate the crisis, saying Ukraine
should drop its NATO ambition and become neutral.

   Washington Wednesday announced sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas
pipeline, which Germany had earlier effectively suspended by halting
certification.

   Australia, Britain, Japan and the European Union have all also announced
sanctions.