Moscow, in another escalation toward a possible invasion of Ukraine, is issuing a growing drumbeat of accusations, all without evidence, that center on a single word.
“What is happening in the Donbas today is genocide,” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Tuesday, referring to Ukraine’s east.
Senior Russian officials and state media have since echoed Mr. Putin’s use of “genocide.” Russian diplomats circulated a document to the United Nations Security Council accusing Ukraine of “exterminating the civilian population” in its east.
On Friday, Russia-backed separatists, who control parts of Ukraine’s east, claimed that Ukraine’s military was about to attack, and ordered women and children to evacuate. Extensive coverage on Russian state media portrayed Russian minorities as fleeing a tyrannical Ukrainian military, and President Biden called such incidents ploys fabricated as pretext for a Russian invasion.
The Kremlin has long asserted that Ukraine’s government persecutes ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking citizens. The charge, backed by lurid and false tales of anti-Russian violence, served as justification in 2014 for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its invasion of eastern Ukraine.
The recent resurgence of such language, now voiced directly by Mr. Putin, indicates what analysts and Western governments say may again be a prelude to invasion.
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