Russian President Vladimir Putin formalized on Friday (30) the annexation of four regions of Ukraine that he has controlled in whole or in part since he invaded the neighboring country on February 24. Regarding this as a fait accompli, he said he was open to negotiating peace on his terms as long as Kiev agreed to a unilateral ceasefire.
In a speech to members of the Russian elite in the pompous St. George’s Room in the Grand Kremlin Palace, the president again hinted at the use of nuclear weapons to defend his new possessions. “We will use any means necessary,” he said, as he went over his traditional speech in which he paints Russia as a victim of a Western conspiracy.
Indeed, the communist empire that ended in 1991 was at the center of the conversation. Putin returned to lament the effects of its dissolution. “There is no more Soviet Union, we cannot go back to the past”, he said, as he announced “four new Russian regions”.
And he blamed the war on the West, as it “seeked to expand NATO to the east” and “broke missile control agreements [nucleares]”, truths at face value, but directed to the Russian’s intended context.
Putin said “the West wants to weaken us” and that the United States is waging a “hybrid war”, suggesting precedent for the use of atomic force. Calling the regions by the nationalist name of New Russia, he said “we will not discuss” status further, but invited Kiev to lay down its arms and return to the negotiating table. “We are prepared for that,” he said.
On Telegram, the Ukrainian Presidency said it would not listen to Putin. The annexation comes at the Russian’s worst moment in the conflict, and after he consulted with ally Xi Jinping as he grapples with underlying crises in the former Soviet periphery, which he considers his backyard: renewed conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the skirmishes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Western elites have always been like that. They were colonizers and continue to be colonizers, discriminating and distinguishing between first and second class nations. We will defend our country, our great civilization.
In the presence of the separatist leaders he has appointed, the president signed four separate annexation decrees, after completing the bureaucratic and legalistic buff that he always gives to acts of his government, whether legitimate or contested. The four areas, about 15% of Ukraine, hastily held referendums calling for membership, seen as farces.
On Thursday night (29), it formally recognized the regions of Kherson and Zaporijia, in southern Ukraine, as independent states. He had done the same on the eve of the February invasion of the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, which make up the Donbass (the Don River basin, the Russian-speaking east at the center of the conflict).
Unlike those, the new regions were not in the hands, even partially, of pro-Russian separatists. The Donbass had been divided since 2014, when the civil war began that followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the first stage of Putin’s project to prevent Ukraine from falling into the Western sphere – his ally Viktor Yanukovych had been overthrown in Kiev.
Now, the Russian Federation gains four more members, bringing the number of federal entities under Moscow’s command to 89. Before the war, they totaled more than 7 million inhabitants, but it is impossible to know how many of them will be incorporated into the 146 million Russians. Counting Crimea, on paper Putin absorbed 22% of the neighbor.
There will be no recognition from the UN or the international community, and Putin doesn’t care: Crimea also only had its annexation validated by six Kremlin side countries and allies (Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan and Nicaragua) and three pro-enslavements. -Russia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan).
President Volodymyr Zelensky has already said that he will continue his fight until he reconquers all Ukrainian territory, UN Secretary General António Guterres called the annexation illegal and Western leaders, American Joe Biden at the head, denounced it as criminal.
Unlike Crimea, which was conquered without a shot after a referendum backed by infiltrated Russian troops, however, the movement now takes place amid a war that threatens to spill over into its neighbours. Kiev’s military position is different too, with billions of dollars in Western equipment and better training and experience.
An example of this is the siege forming in Liman, a city in Donetsk that has been under Ukrainian attack since Zelensky recovered almost all of Kharkiv, in the north-east of the country, earlier this month. The Russian administration in the region speaks of “semi-enveloping” Kremlin forces there, which seems to lead to either a shameful retreat or a suicidal battle.
It’s the famous water on beer at Putin’s party, which included a Red Square full of citizens to watch the president formalize his imperial act on big screens. According to Sheet heard from Muscovites, hospital staff and public offices were summoned to attend and taken by bus to the event, which featured a music show.
Liman’s case recalls that Putin promotes the biggest force annexation in Europe since Adolf Hitler marched on the continent and lost it later, in World War II, but does not have full control over his new lands. In Donetsk, mainly, the Russians command about 60% of the territory.
According to reports, the atmosphere is one of apathy in the Russian capital. An investment banker says that, until the war, an average Russian would have had difficulty pinpointing Zaporijia on the map and that the Donbass’ reputation was similar to that of the American Detroit: a former industrial center in decay. The Kremlin already pays nearly R$8 billion a year to maintain the government of Crimea, and it will have to pay much more now.
The rest is the game designed since the announcement of the annexations, which came after the defeats on the field in September. Putin is now threatening to use nuclear weapons against anyone invading what he considers part of Russia and is proceeding with his unpopular mobilization of 300,000 reservists, aimed at securing personnel to sustain his war effort.
The move could also pave the way for the Kremlin to decide to end the war on terms it considers satisfactory, as the admitted aim of overthrowing Zelensky failed at the dawn of the conflict precisely because of flawed tactics and lack of soldiers.
As Putin himself has always spoken in general terms about the goals, the one his spokesman revealed last week (conquering at least Donetsk) could be the cut-off.
Or not, as Ukraine’s neighbors fear, worried about the effectiveness of Putin’s increased pressure on Europe’s biggest economies, through the closing of Russian gas taps during the winter on the continent and, now, with the nebulous attack on mega-gas pipelines. Russians in the Baltic Sea.
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