if the Ukranian armed forces are really intensively shelling the enclaves,

Looking at the OSCEs maps and comparisions to the sort of base line seize fire violations, I would rather say that we can know that the Ukranian armed forces has escalated the shelling. How intense it is, is hard to grasp.

and if this is the reason why the population are massively fleeing, spontaneously or not (if indeed they are)

I would say that it is more a question of evacuation, as I understand that the rebel authorities has declared that military age men will be conscripted and the rest evacuated. How much people are following those orders is unclear. The reasoning here on part of the rebels is clear, if they think an attack is coming, better to evacuate and mobilise ahead of schedule.

then why are they doing so?

This is where I fear that the conflict takes on a life of its own and that the Azov Battalion or any other sufficiently motivated group can start the war simply by increasing the seize fire violations. Its not like the rebels won't return fire, indeed they are primed to do so. And any Ukrainian military unit coming under attack is primed to shoot back. And militaries has plans for different scenarios and if they think something is happening, they will execute those plans.

And that is in the best case scenario, in the worst case scenario the Ukraian military is intentionally attacking (but it is starting somewhat cautiosly for some reason). I don't know why they would do that, but militaries tends to have among their plans include plans that are not always very rational on the larger scale.

Defence Scheme No. 1 has a place of honor among crazy military schemes:

Defence Scheme No. 1 was created on April 12, 1921, and detailed a surprise invasion of the northern United States as soon as possible after evidence was received of a US invasion of Canada. It assumed that the US would first attempt to capture Montreal and Ottawa and then Hamilton, Toronto, the Prairie Provinces, and Vancouver and the rest of Southwestern British Columbia. Defence Scheme No. 1's US counterpart was War Plan Red, a plan to invade Canada as part of a war with Britain that was created in 1930.[1]

The purpose of invading the US was to allow time for Canada to prepare its war effort and to receive aid from Britain. According to the plan, Canadian flying columns stationed in Pacific Command in western Canada would immediately be sent to seize Seattle, Spokane, and Portland. Troops stationed in Prairie Command would attack Fargo and Great Falls, then advance towards Minneapolis. Troops from Quebec would be sent to seize Albany in a surprise counterattack while troops from the Maritime Provinces would invade Maine. When resistance grew, the Canadian soldiers would retreat to their own borders, destroying bridges and railways to delay US military pursuit.[1][2]

All this is precisely why I have been backing a strong European response to Putin (historically I am, to put it mildly, not a NATO hawk). Because the whole current crisis exists, and escalates, only because Putin wants it to. And I don't imagine for a single second that the situation is getting out of hand from Putin's point of view; I think he's loving it.

Here is where we see things differently. I am sure Putin will attempt to use this crisis, in particular if he has concluded that sanctions are a given anyway. But fundamentally, I see it as driven by a US media campaign. My grounds for that are:

• Scott Ritter, and other commentators, who has been arguing during the fall that there is no invasion force gathered on the border, but that the US media campaign counts troops on Russian bases a fair distance from the border.
  
• That the Ukrainian government - primarily Zelensky - has several times tried to tamp down the media campaign.
  
• That the US refuses to present any evidence for its assertions, indeed getting huffy when a journalist asks what the evidence is. Lets see if I manage to embed a tweet, otherwise follow the link to twitter to see the clip with Ned Price and Matt Lee.

Please watch this video in which journalist Matt Lee accuses State Dept. spokesman Ned Price of veering into "Alex Jones territory" by making the claim that Russia plans to stage a "false flag" attack with "crisis actors" -- Price then sneeringly calls Lee a Russian propagandist pic.twitter.com/5xMsbfWYgz

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 3, 2022

Really, the last one should be sufficient. If one power claims that another is about to wage war, they have the burden of proof. I think US propaganda learned from the Iraq war media campaing to not focus on faked evidence and statements that can be proven as lies, but instead doing a Gish gallop of claims based on secret evidence, leaks from unnamed officials, etc to create the desired story, which lasts even if parts are debunked.

Therefore I don't think a more robust answer to Putin would have helped, I think the US attempt of getting  the EU countries in line is part of whatever it is they are doing.

I keep coming back to the idea that it's all about Germany, and the SPD's great project of economic integration of Russia into Europe. In that respect, things have evolved significantly over the weekend : the Chancellor and the President, who were both firm partisans of Scröder's legacy, have now felt obliged to back their Foreign Minister... this is not necessarily what Putin intended.

Interesting times. The Energiewende announced by the coalition depends implicitly on Russian gas... but gas is eminently fungible.

That could very well be the real focus. But again, since I think it is US driving the crisis (unless they have lost control), I think a rift between Germany and Russia is what the US intended.

And if so it is working:

So far this month, the European Union has received U.S. natural gas volumes five times higher than Russia's pipeline deliveries, according to Polish outlet rp.pl, the first time in history in which American LNG has surpassed Russian gas deliveries.  

That was mid-January.

Israel and especially Netanyahu kept both relationships - Poroshenko and Putin - close. Putin played all religions well besides the Russian Orthodox, also the renovation of Synagogues and Grand Mosque in Moscow and a synagogue in Sochi.

Yad Vashem and Holocaust: Putin's Private Party

'Sapere aude'

The West will respond with sanctions, but Russia can resist them (said Medvedev). That will kinda clear the situation obviously for all parties, if it happens.

If West implements sanctions, then it can't use them to "protect" Ukraine anymore. Ukraine will be much less likely to continue "join operations" in the Donbass area and peace can be restored.

With "Ukraine crisis" solved and the Olympics out of the way, the world can then move on to solve the European security arrangements, because Russia sure won't let that go away until it is solved one way or the other.

Ukraine says they're not attacking anyone or shelling anything, but OSCE monitors observed an explosion every minute of Saturday and Russians say they captured one Ukrainian soldier on the Russian side of the border trespassing from Luhansk (with at least 5 others in 2 IFVs).