Vladimir Putin has declared he recognizes the independence of two separatist-held regions in Ukraine – and there is now the heightened threat that Russian troops could enter the areas.
The Russian president defined Western warnings that such a step would be illegal – prompting new sanctions by the US, UK and EU.
Mr Putin’s announcement, at the end of a TV address that lasted more than an hour, follows requests by the leaders of the two Russian-backed regions Luhansk and Donetsk.
They broke away from Kyiv’s control in 2014 – but are Ukrainian under international law.
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Pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces have been involved in clashes there for several years and the fighting has intensified recently.
Mr Putin has now ordered a peacekeeping operation in the two regions, which are part of Donbas.
Recognition by the president of their independence paves the way to give separatists military support and appears to have provided a pretext for Russian troops to cross the border into those areas.
It could further narrow diplomatic options to avoid war, since it marks a rejection of an eight-year-old ceasefire, brokered by France and Germany under the Minsk agreement, which has been pushed as the framework for any future negotiations on the crisis.
Putin – Eastern Ukraine part of ancient Russian lands
An estimated 150,000 Russian troops have now massed on Ukraine’s borders amid fears of an invasion. The US puts the figure at 190,000.
Justifying his latest decision, Mr Putin described Ukraine as an integral part of Russia’s history and said eastern Ukraine was ancient Russian lands, adding he was confident Russians would support his decision.
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Sanctions over breakaway regions
In response, the White House said President Biden is to issue an executive order prohibiting “new investment, trade, and financing by US persons to, from, or in” the two breakaway regions.
The order will “also provide authority to impose sanctions on any person determined to operate in those areas of Ukraine”. There will also be further measures separate from sanctions that the US and its allies have been preparing if Russia invades Ukraine.
The UK’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted: “Tomorrow we will be announcing new sanctions on Russia in response to their breach of international law and attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The EU said it “will react with sanctions against those involved in this illegal act,” while NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg accused Russia of continuing to fuel the eastern Ukraine conflict and “trying to stage a pretext” for a further invasion.
Ukraine wants to join NATO in future – but neighboring Russia is vehemently against this and Mr Putin claimed the Western alliance has “completely ignored our concerns”, adding if Ukraine was admitted it would be a “direct threat” to Russian security.
Read more: Officials in Russian-backed regions press-gang older men into their militias
Putin warns of NATO enlargement
Mr Putin wants a guarantee from the West that Ukraine will never be allowed to join, and during his lengthy speech he said the question of Ukraine’s entry has been decided in advance.
He said he understands that further enlargement of NATO is only a matter of time and the risk of a sudden strike against Russia will sharply grow if it expands.
The Russian president claimed the US and NATO have “unashamedly turned Ukraine into a theater of war”.
And he believed Ukraine plans to create its own nuclear weapons, adding that if it acquires weapons of mass destruction “the global situation will change drastically, we cannot ignore this”.
Pro-Russian servicemen in a trench in an area controlled by rebels on the frontline near Spartak village in Yasynuvata, Donetsk region. Pic: Associated Press
He said such nuclear weapons would amount to a preparation for an attack on Russia.
There has been fighting in the breakaway regions between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian pro-government forces for several years.
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More than 14,000 people have been killed since conflict erupted in Donbas (which includes Luhansk and Donetsk) in 2014, shortly after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Russia denies being part of the conflict but has backed the separatists with covert military support, financial aid, supplies of COVID-19 vaccines and issuing at least 800,000 Russian passports to residents.
Shelling has intensified since last week along the frontline between the rebels and Ukrainian forces.
Analysis
Russia’s Vladimir Putin has just killed off an eight-year effort to find a negotiated solution to the war in eastern Ukraine and set the stage for military action.
A decision to recognize immediately the independence of the two separatist-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk is an act of defiance in the face of warnings from Western allies.
Analysts believe that he could use their new status in his mind to fabricate a justification for a military intervention against Ukraine’s government.
This could happen, for example, if Mr Putin tries to claim that he has to act to protect ethnic Russians in the two regions from a threat by the Ukrainian armed forces – even though in reality that threat would be manufactured by the Kremlin.
The recognition of independence came at the end of a lengthy televised address to the nation in which President Putin used baseless claims and distorted versions of reality to make out that Ukraine, allied with the West, posed an existential threat.
This move throws fuel on a crisis that already threatens to plunge Ukraine into turmoil and will be a significant challenge for the United States and its NATO allies.
It will be met with outrage by the authorities in Kyiv and the West because Donetsk and Luhansk is Ukrainian under international law.
Germany and France in particular will be dismayed because they had led diplomatic attempts to find a lasting ceasefire between the two sides under what is known as the Minsk Accords – named after the Belarusian capital where they were signed in 2014 and 2015.
However, the agreements have never been implemented. President Putin’s move leaves them in tatters and Ukraine’s future in grave peril.
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Recognising Donetsk and Luhansk allows Russia to send troops into Ukraine, Sky News’ Moscow correspondent Diana Magnay says.
She said: “This essentially paves the way for the Federation Council, the upper house [of the Russian parliament]to authorise the military to go into those separatist republics and then who knows where they go from there.
“Phase one could just be sending in the troops, but then of course you have a situation where Russian troops are facing off against Ukrainian troops directly – up until now it’s essentially been a proxy battle where Russian weapons, and back in 2014-15 some Russian forces, but far less now, were fighting each other in this long eight-year war.
Vladimir Putin signs the decree recognizing Luhansk and Donetsk as independent
“Then you will have a situation where you have Russians against Ukrainians. You might have skirmishes which would give further justification to go further.
“Now the separatists only occupy parts of those two regions and that would mean Russia pushing towards the borders.”
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On Friday, the rebels started bussing tens of thousands of civilians to Russia, accusing Kyiv of planning an attack – which Ukraine denies as propaganda.
Ukraine and the West consider the rebels to be Russia’s proxies, and have been warning for weeks that Moscow might use them to construct a case for war.
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The Russian president denies he is planning to invade his neighbour, saying his forces are there for military drills.
But Moscow has threatened unspecified “military-technical” action unless it receives sweeping security guarantees, including a promise that Ukraine will never join NATO.
At a televised meeting of his Security Council, which normally meets behind closed doors, Mr Putin restated Russia’s demands, insisting it was not enough for the West to say Ukraine was not ready to join NATO at present.
