Enlarge image
Putin during his televised address
Photo: SPUTNIK / via REUTERS
Vladimir Putin has decided to move Ukraine's borders again.
In a speech lasting almost an hour, he announced to his people "a long overdue decision: the immediate recognition of the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic".
These are the names of the areas proclaimed by Moscow-loyal separatists in 2014 in the Donbass coalfields in eastern Ukraine.
Immediately after Putin's appearance, Russian television showed the signing of two "Treats of Friendship and Mutual Aid" by Putin and the puppet presidents of the two regions.
Putin justified the decision with an alleged "genocide" that the Ukrainian "regime" is currently committing against the residents of the Donbass - an argument that he has used before and which only causes shakes of the head among Putin's interlocutors.
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it "ridiculous".
genocide and water prices
What was striking about Putin's speech, however, was that the alleged "genocide" and the fighting on the Donbass front line did not play a major role in it.
Instead, he spoke at length about the history of Ukrainian statehood, which he had already laid out in an essay in the summer of 2021.
The Ukraine as a state is a product of the Soviet Union and its founder Vladimir Lenin, its independence a "mistake" of the Communist Party under Mikhail Gorbachev.
Bizarrely, Putin also got lost in arguments about the high water prices in the neighboring country, corruption and the lack of independence of the courts there.
These were strange topics for a man who has deployed massive troops on the borders of the neighboring country and whose television wants to document an alleged Ukrainian attack in the Donbass with disinformation campaigns.
Putin did not address either issue.
»What then: genocide or water prices?«, many viewers will have asked themselves.
In addition, Putin spoke at length about the eastward expansion of NATO and the West's "blackmailing" sanctions policy, which is not directed against Russia's policies, but against Russia's very existence.
School exams in the Security Council
This followed a bizarre meeting of the Russian Federation's National Security Council, in which Vladimir Putin shifted responsibility for his decision to all the shoulders of his leadership circle.
All permanent members - from the defense minister to the head of the FSB to the chairperson of the Duma - were forced to make statements individually, and Putin did not allow evasive answers.
The meeting was specifically televised.
Normally, the Security Council meets behind closed doors.
The session, which sometimes looked like a school exam, sometimes like political improv, had apparently been pre-recorded.
Putin's speech and the Security Council meeting made three things clear:
First:
It is - officially at least - about the Donbass
.
In Putin's speech and other appearances, no claims were made to other parts of Ukraine, they were limited to the non-implementation of the Minsk agreements - which only affect Donbass.
Even in his long historical digression, Putin refrained from hinting at further claims to "historically Russian" territories, for example in the south-east of Ukraine.
Secondly, the recognition is apparently only the
preliminary stage for the incorporation
of the Donbass into the Russian Federation, even if Putin did not say a word about it.
But Sergey Naryshkin, head of the SVR foreign intelligence service, had trouble following the script at the staged Security Council meeting and was already talking about the Donbass being annexed to the Russian Federation.
He was rebuked by Putin.
Dmitri Kozak, Putin's adviser and representative in the Normandy format, also wanted to press ahead and talk about an annexation and had to be called off by Putin.
The recognition as a preliminary step to the union would correspond to the model of the Crimea: The Ukrainian peninsula declared itself - at least from the Russian point of view - in a "referendum" for independence, in order to then ask for the union with Russia.
On the other hand, Russia recognized the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, but has not yet included them in its state federation.
Thirdly, the
recognition appears to have been planned for a long time
.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin hinted: "We have been preparing for a possible response to the recognition of the DPR and LPR for many months," he said.
Above all, he means the replacement of foreign imports and the risk analysis.
The West had previously threatened Russia with sanctions if it again violated Ukraine's territorial integrity.
What remained unsaid was where Russia draws the borders of the "People's Republics"
.
The Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" claim Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions as a whole - but effectively control only a third of that territory since the Ukrainian army pushed them back.
Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev was the only one who raised the border issue at the session.
He demanded recognition within the maximum limits.
On the other hand, Andrei Klimov, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, spoke on Russian television of the "actual" borders of the republics.
Putin's speech itself also suggested this interpretation.
It is important to prevent a "genocide" of "almost four million people," he said.
That would correspond to the official population of the "People's Republics" within their actual borders.
In view of the fears triggered by Putin's massive troop deployment, for some in Kiev and in the West it is almost a relief to only recognize the de facto "people's republics".
The Federation Council, the upper house, and the Duma, the lower house, will hold a special session on Tuesday.
Apparently, the new treaties with the "People's Republics" will be ratified there - which in turn would clear the way for the stationing of Russian troops.
Putin concluded his speech with a war threat: If Kiev "does not immediately cease hostilities," "responsibility for continuing the bloodshed will rest entirely on the conscience of the regime ruling Ukraine's territory." Ukraine, that's what it's called , is not a state but a territory, its elected government is merely a regime, and even if the separatists loyal to Moscow shoot, the blame lies with Ukraine, according to Putin.
These are the best conditions to escalate further at will.
The recognition of the "People's Republics" would then only be the first step.