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Kyiv calls NATO meeting as Donbass toll rises
Summary
A retrospective on 12 April 2021, when Ukraine invoked an emergency consultation mechanism with the alliance while front-line deaths continued.
What prompted Kyiv to call an emergency meeting with NATO on 12 April 2021? Ukraine triggered Article 15 of the Charter on a Special Partnership, seeking talks on the Russian escalation in Donbass and the build-up of Russian forces on its border.
The article had last been triggered in 2018, during the Kerch Strait incident. That episode took place on 25 November 2018, when the Russian Federal Security Service coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels as they tried to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol. It was the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Losses on the front line
The diplomatic move came as fighting claimed more lives. On 12 April 2021, two Ukrainian soldiers were killed in clashes with separatist forces in Donbass, both from small arms fire. Their deaths brought the number of troops killed in action that year to 29.
The day before, 11 April 2021, one Ukrainian soldier was killed and another seriously wounded by artillery fire from Russian separatist forces on the front line in eastern Ukraine. That brought the year's toll to 27 at the time.
Taken together, the two days added three deaths to the count, while Kyiv turned to its NATO partnership framework over the situation along the border and in Donbass.
