Vladimir Putin I send troops to Donetsk and Lugansk, the two Ukrainian cities controlled by groups pro-Russian separatists which he, this very day, recognized as independent territories.
On a convulsive Monday for the international order, everything was a matter of hours. First, the leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk, Denís Pushilin and Leonid Pásechnik asked Russia to declare these areas as independent people’s republics.
As if everything was premeditated, the second step arrived. In a matter of hours, Putin himself approved that status, promoted by the Duma and its Armed Forces. Towards the end of the afternoon in Latin America, and when night had already fallen in Donbas, he sealed a third movement and sent his soldiers to that region.
That territory located on the border belongs, at least on the maps, to Ukrainebut since 2014 it has been a zone of conflict between pro-Russian armed groups backed by the Kremlin and Ukrainian forces seeking to hold their territory.
The tensions go beyond the armed because a part of those who live there – around 800,000 people – speak Russian and consider themselves part of Moscow, but that sector of Eastern Europe remained in the hands of Ukraine when the Soviet Union was dissolved.
The response from the West was also not long in coming. The United States de Joe Biden, la France of Emmanuel Macron and the Germany of Olaf Scholz announced a joint action against Russia for what they consider an invasion of Ukraine. Following this, the UN Security Council prepares an extraordinary meeting.
The West unites against Russia
Biden, Macron and Scholz had a brief virtual summit in which they severely condemned the rrecognition of the sovereignty of Donetsk and Lugansk by Russia and expressed their “full solidarity” with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The three leaders agreed in their conversation “not to give up their commitment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine”, as well as to use “with all their might” to prevent a new escalation.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had earlier urged Russia to “revoke” recognition of the self-proclaimed breakaway republics which, in his opinion, “destroys” the Minsk agreements and violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
President Putin’s decision to recognize them “is a severe blow to the diplomatic efforts” deployed by the so-called Normandy Format and the OSCE, says the minister.
Baerbock also recalled that since 2014 Russia has been committed to the implementation of the Minsk agreements and participated in both the so-called Normandy Format – made up of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany – and in the OSCE contact group for the resolution of the conflict.