While fighting the toughest battle of the Ukrainian War so far, in the Lugansk region (Donbass, east of the country), Russia is accelerating its plans for dominating neighboring territories that have fallen under its military control.
The government of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, a pro-Kremlin breakaway area of ​​Donbass, has announced that its next prime minister will be Russian Vitali Khotsenko. It sounds like a bureaucratic detail, but it’s not.
During the eight years of Moscow-backed civil war in the region, which began in the wake of the annexation of Crimea in response to the overthrow of the Vladimir Putin-friendly government in Kiev, Russia has always tried to disguise its intentions by saying that it only acted at the request of Russian-speaking populations. locations.
Khotsenko, a former department head at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, is the first Russian to hold a post in the administration of Donetsk, which with Lugansk makes up the historic Donbass (Russian Don River basin).
The recognition of the two so-called republics of the region by Moscow was the prelude to the war, taking place three days before the outbreak of the conflict in February. Khotsenko’s appointment shows that perhaps a future annexation, in the event of a military victory, may not be ruled out.
In Lugansk, the battle for the city of Severodonetsk, the fiercest direct clash between Ukrainians and Russians, is going badly for Kiev. Russia says it controls the city, with the exception of an industrial fringe, and Ukraine admits it may have to withdraw into a defensive position beyond the border with the piece of Donetsk province it still manages.
The situation is more comfortable, in relative terms, for the Russians on the land corridor they established in the south of the country, linking Donbass with Crimea. There, Minister Serguei Choigu (Defense) claims to have reestablished train traffic and recovered 1,200 km of train lines, which facilitates the transit of heavy weapons.
The Donbass borders the Russian regions of Rostov and Kursk. The country’s Southern Command is headquartered in the first, a source of military material through rail transport.
The land bridge areas are the Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Zaporijia, which are almost all occupied — in the latter, the namesake capital is still in the hands of the government of Volodymyr Zelensky, and perhaps remains so.
There the Russian game is less nuanced than in Donbass, and the area is being treated as a region of military occupation, with administrators appointed directly by the Kremlin. In both, there is an ongoing campaign offering Russian passports to citizens and measures such as changing the school curriculum and adopting the ruble as a currency.
Indeed, since they are less Russian-speaking areas than the Donbass or Crimea, there is more resistance. Protests occur from time to time in Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city taken by Russia at the start of the war, and there are saboteur activities and bomb attacks recorded here and there.
For Choigu, who made his announcement triumphantly on Wednesday (8), this seems unimportant. It seems a matter of time before the rumors that both puppet governments installed in the south promote a plebiscite aimed at their annexation as a region of the Russian Federation.
The minister also announced the restoration of water flow from the Kherson reservoir to Crimea. Before the 2014 annexation, it supplied 85% of the water to the peninsula, but the Ukrainians created a dam to limit the supply. At the beginning of the war, the Russians bombed the blockade, but only now has the area been cleared and the canal reopened.
If Putin consolidates a one-off victory in the Donbass, albeit in the form of a low-friction conflict, perhaps even frozen for years like the previous civil war, the question remains whether the Russian president will be satisfied with what he calls an operation. special military. Analysts suggest this could be a way out for the Kremlin, having failed to conquer Kiev early in the war.
The sim suggests some sort of accommodation to end the bloodshed of war, but it’s utterly unfathomable. He also disregards the resistance of Ukraine, which refuses to accept territorial losses in exchange for peace, despite growing pressure in the West to do so.
It no longer implies that, once consolidated in the east and south, Putin will be able to advance on the Black Sea coast and perhaps Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which he unsuccessfully besieged at the start of the war. At this point, however, it’s just conjecture — prolonging the war sounds assured for now.
