Huge explosion shakes eastern Ukraine after warning of ‘imminent Russian invasion’ – World News

Two explosions are believed to have occurred in eastern Ukraine as well as a car bomb of a separatist official amid fears Putin is finding a pretext to attack.

Two large explosions were reported in eastern Ukraine hours after a car bomb detonated the Jeep of a Ukrainian separatist official.

The explosions are believed to have occurred in the breakaway Russian city of Luhansk, just 40 minutes apart late on Friday night.

The explosions in Luhansk, where a gas pipeline is believed to have caught fire after a “strong explosion”, were reported by Russia’s Interfax news agency.

It comes amid fears of an “imminent” invasion with tensions simmering along the Ukrainian border, where 190,000 Russian troops are believed to be in offensive positions.

US President Joe Biden said he believes Vladimir Putin is determined to strike and that the invasion is imminent.

He spoke on Friday after Moscow-backed separatists demanded that civilians leave the separatist areas on buses, a move that the West fears is part of the rationale for an attack.

And amid claims that Putin is preparing a “false flag” where he will say pro-Russian groups in Ukraine have been attacked as a pretext for invasion, there have been two reported explosions in one area. secession.

Before that, without providing evidence, Denis Pushilin, the separatist leader in Donetsk, accused Ukraine of preparing to attack the two regions soon – an allegation that Kyiv considers untrue.

Warning sirens sounded in Donetsk and Luhansk on Friday after rebel leaders there announced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people to Russia.

Hours after the evacuation announcement, a car bomb in Donetsk, believed to have belonged to the separatist official, Major General Denis Sinenkov, exploded outside a rebel government building.

A security expert in Kyiv told Sun : “It looks like a fake flag. They will blame Ukraine but how can they trap it? ”

Late on Friday, Ukrainian military intelligence said Russian special forces had placed explosives at social facilities in Donetsk, and it urged people to stay at home.

“We have reason to believe that Russian forces are planning and intending to attack Ukraine in the next week, in the coming days,” Biden said of an impending Russian attack.

“At this point, I firmly believe he has made the decision.”

Many families in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donetsk region have been granted citizenship by Moscow, and within hours some were boarding buses to an evacuation point, where authorities said 700,000 would leave.

Irina Lysanova, 22, said she was packing to travel with her retired mother: “Mom is a panicky person,” she said. Her father, Konstantin, 62, did not go. “This is my hometown,” he said.

The evacuation began after the simmering conflict zone in eastern Ukraine saw what sources describe as the heaviest shelling in years on Friday.

Ukraine is the most painful loss to Russia of the 14 former republics it controlled before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Russian-backed rebels seized a swath of eastern Ukraine in 2014, the same year that Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region. Kyiv says more than 14,000 people have died in the conflict in the east since then.