Kyiv says Russia could divide Ukraine like Korea; ICRC denies aiding forced evacuations of Ukrainians

Kyiv: Ukraine on Sunday warned of a possible escalation in fighting around the besieged southern port city of Mariupol after Moscow said it was focusing its military resources on capturing the eastern Donbas region.

"This means a potential or sharp deterioration around Mariupol," an adviser to the head of the President’s office, Oleksiy Arestovich, said in a video statement. He was referring to a surprise Russian statement on Friday that it was time for Moscow to set as its "main goal" controlling Donbas, an eastern region already partly held by Russian proxies.

"This gives us hope in the area of Kyiv, Chernigiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, that we will drive the enemy out of here," Arestovich said, referring to north and eastern regions. He also announced that Ukrainian forces were counter attacking against invading Russian troops in those areas, referring to small, tactical offensives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24 with the aim of defending pro-Moscow separatists to and "demilitarise and de-nazify" the country. The Russian announcement on Friday would amount to a sharp change of course with much limited goals that would not include an assault on the capital.

Moscow’s month-long invasion on its pro-democracy neighbour has largely stalled with no major recent advances and Ukrainian forces even able to counterattack in places.Meanwhile, Ukraine said Sunday that Russia, whose troops have been slowly advancing towards the capital Kyiv, may aim to divide the country into versions of North and South Korea.

Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of the Defence Intelligence, said in a statement on social media that the strategy could result from President Vladimir Putin’s failure to "capture Kyiv and remove Ukraine’s government".

"There are reasons to believe that he may try to impose a separation line between the occupied and unoccupied regions of our country. In fact, it will be an attempt to set up South and North Koreas in Ukraine," Budanov said.

The two Koreas are still technically at war after a 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, sealing the division of their peninsula with an impenetrable border. Their border is a four-kilometre-wide (2.4-mile) by 248 kilometre-long area known as the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ).

Russia signaled earlier this week it may dial back its war aims to focus on eastern Ukraine after failing to break the nation’s resistance in a month of fighting and attacks on civilians. "The invaders will try to set up some quasi-state as an alternative to independent Ukraine," Budanov said.

"We can see attempts to set up ‘parallel’ local governments in occupied areas and to force people to give up the Ukrainian currency," he added. Budanov said Russia may try to use the status of occupied territory as a bargaining chip at negotiations.

Moscow’s month-long assault on its pro-democracy neighbour has largely stalled with no major recent advances and Ukrainian forces even able to counterattack in places.Meantime, the International Committee of the Red Cross has denied accusations that it helped organise or carry out forced evacuations of Ukrainians to Russia.

"The ICRC does not ever help organize or carry out forced evacuations. This applies everywhere we work. We would not support any operation that would go against people’s will and our principles," the Geneva-based humanitarian organisation said in a statement published late on Saturday.

The ICRC statement, headlined "Addressing misinformation about ICRC’s activities", did not specify what had given rise to the strong denial, saying only "over the past days, false information about the ICRC has been circulated that we must address".

However, the statement appears to be a response to accusations by Roman Rukomeda, a Ukrainian political analyst who spoke to the Euractiv online media on Saturday. In those comments, Rukomeda said "there is evidence of strange behaviour by the International Committee of the Red Cross and its head, who announced the decision to open an office in Russian Rostov to assist Russian terrorists in the illegal deportation of Ukrainian citizens".

The ICRC warned that such "false information" could have a major impact on people affected by the conflict in Ukraine. "This misinformation is also putting at risk Red Cross staff and volunteers on the ground and could jeopardize our access to people in need of urgent aid," the statement added.

The ICRC did say that it had been involved in two evacuation operations for Ukrainian people, on March 15 and March 18 when they "facilitated the voluntary safe passage of civilians" out of the northeastern city of Sumy. "On both occasions people willingly took buses leading them to another Ukrainian city, Lubny," further from the Russian border, the ICRC said.