Russia Recognises Donbass Republics' Independence

 By Alexey Nikolsky

 February 21, 2022

Earlier in the day, in an emergency session of the Russian Security Council, the Russian president consulted with ministers, senior security officials and members of the government to present their views on the matter and its potential political, economic and strategic implications. 

 

Russia will recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, President Vladimir Putin has announced.

"I deem it necessary to make a decision that should have been made long ago - to immediately recognize the sovereignty and independence of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic," Putin said.

 

The Russian president signed the corresponding documents and asked the Federal Assembly to support the signing of treaties of cooperation with the Donbass breakaways.

 

"Ukraine is not just a neighbour to us, but an inherent part of our history, culture and spiritual space. They are our comrades...our family, people we have blood and family ties with," Putin said in an address to the nation Monday night outlining his decision.

 

"Modern Ukraine was completely created by Russia, more precisely by Communist Russia. This process was started after the 1917 Revolution," Putin said. The president suggested that Ukraine saw its territory expand at "historic Russia's" expense after the Revolution, and at Poland's expense after the Second World War, with Poland receiving compensation in the form of German lands to its west. He also recalled that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev cut Crimea off from the Russian Soviet republic's jurisdiction and handed it over to the Ukrainian Soviet republic in the 1954.

After the collapse of the USSR, Putin said, Ukraine was taken over by nationalist elites and oligarchs who had "nothing to do with" its independence. At the same time, Putin recalled, Russia continued to work with post-Soviet Ukraine, to act in an "open and honest manner with respect to Ukraine's interests," including through growing trade cooperation, which reached tens of billions of dollars by the early 2010s.

NATO Danger

Putin suggested Ukrainian radicals backed by US forces took advantage of popular anger over corruption in 2014 to stage a coup, with the country's current 'patriotic' authorities leading the country toward desovereignization and total subservience to the West, while marginalizing the Russian-speaking community, undermining the rights of Orthodox believers, and posing a danger to Russia's security.

 

Putin accused the current authorities in Ukraine of seeking to drag other countries into a war with Russia. "We have also heard statements about Ukraine threatening to create a nuclear weapon," he noted. The Russian president suggested this was not an "idle threat," with Ukraine possessing Soviet-era nuclear and delivery technology to build such a weapon. "We cannot help but react to this real threat," he warned. Putin added that Moscow could not exclude the danger of Ukraine receiving assistance from the West in building a nuke, given the billions of dollars in military assistance already sent to Ukraine by NATO nations.

 

Putin warned that Ukraine's entry into the Western alliance would constitute a "direct threat" to Russia's security, and that the alliance's training centers already established in the country amount to military bases - something illegal under Ukraine's own Constitution.

 

Putin recalled that despite posing no threat to the Western alliance after the Cold War, Russia has received five waves of NATO expansion - despite promises in the early 1990s not to do so. "They just lied to us," he said.

The Russian president also pointed to the deployment of dual-use US missile defence systems in Eastern Europe which can be used to strike targets deep inside Russia, and said the military threat to Moscow will increase "manyfold" as the number of these systems inevitably grows. He added that the deployment of NATO radar equipment in Ukraine would allow them to effectively control airspace inside Russia.

Security Guarantee Proposals Ignored

Putin recalled the security guarantee proposals laid out by Russia in December, but said that unfortunately, the West has rejected them and threatened to introduce new sanctions and otherwise attempt "to contain the development of Russia."

 

Earlier Monday, speaking an emergency session of the Russian Security Council in the Kremlin, Putin said that the negotiations process on the Donbass has reached a dead-end.

He also specified that the discussion on the future of the self-proclaimed republics was about recognizing them as independent states, not a matter of their becoming part of Russia.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, asked Putin to to consider the parliamentary appeal approved last week to recognize the DPR and LNR as independent states. The lawmaker pointed out that over 1.2 million residents of the Donbass have already applied for Russian citizenship.

For her part, Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of the Federation Council - Russia's upper house of parliament, said the time had come to make a decision on the Donbass, and called the situation in the region a "humanitarian disaster and genocide" in the heart of Europe. She noted that throughout the 7+ year conflict, Russia has consistently stood in favour of a diplomatic and political solution to the conflict.

"No one listened to us. There was an imitation of the Minsk Agreements," she said. At the same time, the chairwoman accused the West of trying to push Russians and Ukrainians, two fraternal Slavic peoples, into a war.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin expressed support for the measure, saying it would be appropriate in the absence of any progress on the Minsk Agreements. He added that officials have spent some time preparing for the West's potential reaction to a Russian recognition of the Donbass, with these risks said to be accounted for.

Later Monday, in connection with the comments made by officials at the Russian Security Council meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that he has carried out urgent consultations with President Emmanuel Macron of France and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and called a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

Putin also spoke with Macron and Scholz, telling them he intends to sign a decree on Donbass. According to the Kremlin, the French and German leaders expressed 'disappointment'.

Footage Shows Ukrainians Seek Shelter and Flee Country as Russia Attacks

JESSICA CORBETT

February 24, 2022

 Photos and videos circulating on social media and news networks across the globe Thursday showed Ukrainian civilians using subway stations as emergency shelters, lining up to cross into Poland, and taking in the wreckage from Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"You wake up in a totally new reality at 5:00 am and you find out the world is no longer the safe place you imagined," one Ukrainian woman told CNN's Clarissa Ward in a crowd subway station. "We don't want to be a part of Russia or any other country."

Holding back tears, the woman added that she wants the Russian people to know that the invading forces are "not attacking just the military bases, they're actually attacking in our neighborhoods and they're making us feel insecure and very unsafe."

Scenes of Ukrainians flooding the train stations to escape the Russian attack drew comparisons to Londoners and the Blitz during World War II.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the military action before dawn Thursday, sparking swift condemnation from human rights groups and political leaders worldwide as well as protests from people across Russia—who risked arrest to demonstrate against war—and around the world.

As peace advocates took the streets, the International Rescue Committee warned that "the resulting humanitarian catastrophe from a full-scale war in Ukraine will lead to grave human suffering. The world will bear witness to innocent deaths, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and massive displacement inside the country and across Europe."

Russian forces reportedly seized control of Chernobyl, the site of the historic 1986 nuclear disaster. A Ukrainian official said that "the condition of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant, confinement, and nuclear waste storage facilities is unknown."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video statement late Thursday that at least 137 Ukrainians have died so far and another 316 were wounded. He also ordered a 90-day military mobilization and barred male citizens ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country.

Some Ukrainians who fled their homes have gone to Poland, which has opened up reception centers for refugees. One reporter captured a traffic jam spanning over six miles at the border.

Photojournalists across Ukraine also captured damage from Russian rocket attacks and distressed civilians seeking safety.

"I am very stressed. I didn't sleep last night," Anna, a resident of the Ukrainian city Chernihiv, said from her vehicle in a video shared by The New York Times. "I was gathering our belongings. And I'm stuck here in traffic, and it's taking too long."

"We all want peace and quiet, we don't want war," said Anastazja, a Polish student who was studying in Ukraine but returned to her home country.

She also called on decision-makers in Russia to end the long-awaited invasion, saying, "Please... stop, because people suffer from it."

While reporters and others within Ukraine shared harrowing footage of Russia's air and ground assault, Reuters also flagged some images and videos that were misrepresented.

Other journalists have created graphics tracking the Russian attacks throughout Ukraine, which is about 233,000 square miles.

Zelenskyy, in his video statement, said that Russian groups have entered the Ukrainian capital and are targeting the president and his family.

"According to our information, the enemy marked me as target No. 1, my family, as target No. 2. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state. We have information that enemy sabotage groups have entered Kyiv," he said. "I am staying in the government quarter together with others."

"The question now in Kyiv," said Ukrainian journalist Oleksiy Sorokin, "is... whether we will survive."

Sorokin, who reports for The Kyiv Independent, told MSNBC's Katy Tur that "we were told that we shouldn't exist."

"Kyiv was a European capital. Kyiv had bars, had clubs. We love. We had freedom of speech. We went to movies. We enjoyed life. I had plans for the future. I had an apartment renovation that's ongoing," said Sorokin. "I wanted to live... in the city, in the capital of a European state."

"And because of one madman, one absolutely insane person," he added, referring Putin, "I am sitting in bomb shelter, and my main priority right now is for my grandma, my dad, his family to survive—and that's the world we are living in, in 2022, in Europe."