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What did late November 2021 reveal about Kyiv's region?
Summary
A look back at the tense final days of November 2021, from accusations of a coup plot to a border crisis and a Turkish mediation offer.
What was the mood around Ukraine as 1 December 2021 began? It was one of rising tension, shaped by several developments in the preceding days.
On 26 November 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of plotting a coup against him. He said the tycoon Rinat Akhmetov was being enlisted to help plan it, and that his country was prepared for any scenario. Three days later, on 29 November 2021, Turkey offered to mediate between Ukraine and Russia over the conflict between the two nations.
A crisis on the western edge
The region's unease was not limited to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. On 26 November 2021, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko appeared publicly at the Belarus–Poland border for the first time since the migrant crisis began. He told migrants they were free to return home or head west, and said they would not be detained, choked or beaten if they chose to go through.
The crisis had begun in August 2021, when the Belarusian government started sponsoring an influx of migrants, mostly from the Middle East and North Africa, to the borders of Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. Belarus denied involvement, but the European Union and independent observers viewed it as hybrid warfare, undertaken in response to the deterioration in relations after the 2020 presidential election and the protests that followed. Unauthorised crossing attempts numbered in the tens of thousands between August and December 2021, peaking in October.
Later, at least 20 migrants died over the following winter from harsh weather and abuse by border authorities.
A domestic tragedy
Away from diplomacy, a gas explosion was reported on 27 November 2021 in a five-storey residential building in Nova Odesa, in the Mykolaiv region. It destroyed two flats, killed three people and injured three more.
Looking back
The days before 1 December 2021 combined a public accusation of a coup plot in Kyiv, an outside offer to mediate and a migrant standoff on the EU's eastern frontier. Each was a separate story, but together they marked a period in which the region's security questions drew steadily more attention.
