The Kremlin said on Wednesday that rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine have asked Russia for military assistance to help fend off Ukrainian "aggression", The Associated Press reports.
The announcement from Moscow immediately fueled fears that the rebel request amounted to a pretext for war, which the West has warned about for weeks.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the rebel chiefs wrote to President Vladimir Putin, pleading with him to intervene after Ukrainian shelling caused civilian deaths and crippled vital infrastructure.
In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced he had demanded an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council.
"Ukraine has requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council due to the appeal by Russian occupation administrations in Donetsk and Luhansk to Russia with a request to provide them with military assistance, which is a further escalation of the security situation," Kuleba said on Twitter, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday night that Putin would not accept his call.
In an emotional address to the nation, Zelensky rejected Moscow´s claims that his country poses a threat to Russia and lamented that a Russian invasion would cost tens of thousands of lives.
"The people of Ukraine and the government of Ukraine want peace," he said in Russian, but warned that if the nation comes under an attack, "we will fight back."
The appeal by the rebels comes two days after Putin recognized the two separatist regions in Ukraine as independent and later announced he would deploy "peacekeeping" forces there.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday the separatists' request for Russian help was an example of the sort of "false-flag" operation that the US and its allies have expected Moscow to use as a pretense for war.
"So we´ll continue to call out what we see as false-flag operations or efforts to spread misinformation about what the actual status is on the ground," she said.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday approved a 30-day state of emergency in light of the Russian military incursion into the eastern part of the country.
The state of emergency allows authorities to restrict movement, block rallies and ban political parties and organizations “in the interests of national security and public order.”