Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Tamas]

Speech over. Independence recognised, peacekeeping forces will be sent in, if Ukraine continues their attacks, they'll be responsible for what happens.

So next Russia will claim Ukrain is attacking those independent areas - including innocent Russian peacekeepers - probably with NATO assistance and they need to deal with the rogue regime in Kyiv?

I am afraid so. He built up a long case for how Ukraine isn't actually a country.

[Admiral Yi]

From the "discussion":

Shameless manspreading! 

[FunkMonk]

So, uh, it sounds like Putin ranted on like some Russian ultranationalist on the old Paradox boards. Did he produce a homemade map showing Russia's true borders?

[The Larch]

So, uh, it sounds like Putin ranted on like some Russian ultranationalist on the old Paradox boards. Did he produce a homemade map showing Russia's true borders?

He just implied them.

[Tamas]

So, uh, it sounds like Putin ranted on like some Russian ultranationalist on the old Paradox boards. Did he produce a homemade map showing Russia's true borders?

He will (try to) produce his own real borders.

[Berkut]

So, uh, it sounds like Putin ranted on like some Russian ultranationalist on the old Paradox boards. Did he produce a homemade map showing Russia's true borders?

He should have learned from Trump and whipped out a Sharpie.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally I think recognising the "republics" is enough to activate sanctions now rather than having to wait for a full blown invasion.

The path is clear either Ukraine can try and push back and face a huge war, or have their country dismembered bit by bit. It feels like that's enough justification to try sanctions now and hope they have an effect (I don't think they'll work - I think sanctions are overrated and tend to have limited impact, but I can't think of any other non-violent options).

Edit: Hopefully - Johnson and Biden calling Zelenskiy this evening and Truss has issued a statement saying allies are coordinating a response. I don't really see the point in waiting for sanctions given that the ceasefire agreement's just been torn up.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I find it interesting that Putin first called France and Germany to tell them about recognizing the separatists, before informing his nation. What was the idea? Gauging their immediate reaction to help determine what to put into his speech?

Minsk?

I'm not sure this is de-escalatory at all. It depends on if he means those "republics" as they are now or the actual borders of Donetsk and Luhansk which includes rather a lot more Ukrainian territory. In  addition it seems if you recognise them, we move from little green men to formal Russian support so the next "provocation" from Ukraine into those regions will hit a tripwire of Russian troops. I hope that's wrong.

It'd mean exchanging little green men for Russian peacekeepers, like those in Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Transnistria.

and then, just like in Georgia: moving the border-markers by a few meters each night gobbling up ever more land.
Too bad Russia has nukes.

[Sheilbh]

VdL and Michel have issued a joint statement from the EU saying they're going to impose sanctions "against those involved in this illegal act" - so it sounnds like the approach at the minute is to treat this as a minor step and target individuals, rather than sectors. So I suspect that's the coordinated response.

I'm not convinced that's the right approach - I think there's an argument for starting to impose some of the more serious sanctions now, though not all of them. Not individually targeted packages as has been attempted since 2008, then 2014.

[The Larch]

Does somebody know if the DPR and LPR claim the entire territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions or only the one they control, and what is covered by Russia's recognition today? There's plenty of territory in those regions still controlled by the Ukranian government.

[Syt]

[Admiral Yi]

Fuck, that's it?

[Sheilbh]

I can understand not wanting to use full sanctions - which is apparently a very big serious package of measures - for this, because it isn't an invasion. But that and the EU statement seem pretty weak.

I think you need to give a hint of the "swift and severe" measures because at this point I'm not sure why Moscow would worry about them being any different than 2014 and that the price for war on Ukraine is affordable.

[Syt]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/21/putin-angry-spectacle-amounts-to-declaration-war-ukraine

Putin's absurd, angry spectacle will be a turning point in his long reign

Sitting alone at a desk in a grand, columned Kremlin room, Vladimir Putin looked across an expanse of parquet floor at his security council and asked if anyone wished to express an alternative opinion.

He was met with silence.

A few hours later, the Russian president appeared on state television to give an angry, rambling lecture about Ukraine, a country that in Putin's telling had become "a colony with a puppet regime", and had no historical right to exist.

Putin's double bill, which was immediately followed by the signing of an agreement on Russian recognition of the two proxy states in east Ukraine as independent entities, is likely to go down in history as one of the major turning points in his 22-years-and-counting rule over Russia.

This was not a politician convening his team for discussions, this was a supreme leader marshalling his minions and ensuring collective responsibility for a decision that, at minimum, will change the security architecture in Europe, and may well lead to a horrific war that consumes Ukraine.

Putin appeared genuinely angry and passionate in his speech, which he almost certainly wrote himself.

In a symbolic sign of his increasing isolation, with no equals who can talk back to him or debate ideas, Putin has recently taken to meeting politicians, including his own ministers, across ostentatiously large tables, apparently as a Covid precaution. But at the security council meeting on Monday, when a long table for once would have seemed appropriate, Putin sat alone, surveying his subordinates from absurdly far away, as they squirmed awkwardly in chairs waiting their turn to be grilled by the boss.

From behind his desk, frequently smirking, Putin listened one-by-one to his security council. The body contains some of the few people who have Putin's ear, but even some of them appeared overawed by the situation and nervous at fluffing their lines.

Sergei Naryshkin, the hawkish head of Russia's spy service, known for making aggressively anti-western statements, stuttered uncomfortably as Putin grilled him on whether he supported the decision.

"Speak directly!" Putin snapped, twice.

Eventually, when he was able to get the words out, Naryshkin said he supported "the LNR and DNR becoming part of Russia." A smirking Putin told him that wasn't the subject of the discussion; it was only recognition being weighed up.

Some suggested this might have been a carefully scripted encounter to show the West what other options might be available, but Naryshkin's genuinely flustered expression suggested otherwise.

It is hard to tell whether or not Putin had decided his plan for Ukraine months ago, or whether has been making plans on the hop, but it was certainly clear that the decision on recognition had been taken well before this strange, stage-managed event.

There was very little exchange of opinion, and the idea that it was all spontaneous was further undermined by the fact that close-ups of the watches of certain participants appeared to suggest that the "live" broadcast had in fact been filmed several hours earlier.

This did not stop Putin specifically emphasising that the event really was a frank exchange of views.

"Every one of you knows, and I specially want to underline it ... I did not discuss any of this with you before. I did not ask your opinion before. And this is happening spontaneously, because I wanted to hear your opinions without any preliminary preparation," he said.

The appearance of Putin just a few hours later with his long, pre-prepared and wide-ranging speech made the claim this was all a real-time decision-making process even more implausible.

Many of Putin's team give the impression of genuinely believing the propaganda narrative Russia has built to justify its continuing aggression against Ukraine. Valentina Matviyenko, the only woman on the security council, gave an elongated harangue cobbled together from the more outlandish talking points of Russian news bulletins: innocent Russia facing down the nefarious West, which was backing the "genocidal" Kyiv regime.

Not everyone was so enthusiastic: prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, spoke briefly and drily, looking visibly uncomfortable. Not willing to let him off the hook without swearing fealty to the decision that was already inevitably on the way, Putin asked him directly whether he supported it; Mishustin mumbled that he did. Everyone was now publicly on record as supporting this move, nobody will be able to weasel out of it later and claim they put up a fight.

The recognition decision answers some questions but others remain. There is a chance Putin may simply recognise the two republics "as they are". This, after months of apocalyptic scenarios, would probably be privately accepted as a good outcome by Ukraine and the west.

But it seems likely that Putin has much more in mind than simply taking a nibble out of Ukraine's east and taking formal responsibility for territories he already de facto controlled.

Putin's final words, that if Kyiv did not stop the violence they would bear responsibility for the "ensuing bloodshed", were ominous in the extreme. It sounded, quite simply, like a declaration of war.

[Syt]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/21/russia-ukraine-updates/#link-ZJH3EHI3QRGO3HQKCKM3M5QVB4

Putin questions Ukraine's statehood and criticizes the West in TV address

MOSCOW — In his lengthy television address on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin excoriated Ukraine's leaders and called the country "a colony with puppets at its helm" where Russian speakers were oppressed.

"Ukraine has never had its own authentic statehood. There has never been a sustainable statehood in Ukraine," he said. He warned that Ukraine could develop its own nuclear weapons, calling this a "real threat," adding that the West might help Kyiv develop them.

He also attacked NATO's expansion, saying Western countries wanted to hold Russia back, and had never taken Moscow into account.

Russia backed separatists in two regions of eastern Ukraine after annexing Crimea in 2014, following Ukraine's Maidan revolution that ousted a pro-Moscow leader.

The conflict over the regions has claimed almost 14,000 lives and continues to this day. A 2014 Minsk peace agreement was developed to restore the separatist regions to Ukraine's control but was never implemented.

Moscow has insisted that the regions get broad autonomy, but Kyiv has argued that implementing the deal on these terms would give Moscow a lever to control Ukraine's foreign policy and halt its tilt toward the West.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that recognizing the separatist regions would be "a gross violation of international law" that would further violate Ukraine's territorial integrity. He said such a move would "necessitate a swift and firm response from the United States in full coordination with our Allies and partners."

Moscow has been preparing the ground for years — issuing Russian passports to 800,000 Ukrainians in the two separatist regions since 2019 so Russia could send in forces to "defend" them as its own citizens.