Russia has moved quickly to secure its hold on Ukraine’s rebel regions following the recognition of their independence with bills allowing the deployment of troops there. Western governments are planning to announce sanctions against Moscow.
erupted weeks after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Moscow of backing the separatists with troops and weapons, the charges it has denied, saying that Russians who fought in the east were volunteers. Putin’s move Monday formalizes Russia’s hold on the regions and gives it a free hand to deploy its forces there.
“The Kremlin recognized its own aggression against Ukraine,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Twitter, describing Moscow’s move as a “New Berlin Wall” and urging the West to quickly slap Russia with sanctions. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak also said in a radio interview Tuesday he could confirm that Russian forces entered the territories, describing it as a violation of Ukraine’s borders and international law.
The 2015 deal that was brokered by France and Germany and signed in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, required Ukraine to offer a sweeping self-rule to the rebel regions in a diplomatic coup for Russia after a series of Ukrainian military defeats. Many in Ukraine resented the deal as a betrayal of national interests and a blow to the country’s integrity, and its implementation has stalled., blaming the U.S.
In a stark warning to Ukraine, the Russian leader charged that it has unfairly inherited Russia’s historic land granted to it by the Communist rulers of the Soviet Union and mocked its effort to shed the Communist past in a so-called “decommunization” campaign.
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