Vladimir Putin has tonight unilaterally recognised the two breakaway republics in Ukraine. In doing so, he has effectively ended the Minsk peace process. The move also begs the question of whether Putin is recognising the territory that these so-called republics actually hold, or the much larger territory that they claim. If the latter, then that raises the question of whether Russian troops will be used to take that land given that Putin immediately signed ‘friendship and mutual assistance’ treaties with them at the end of his speech this afternoon.
The speech, though, went even further than recognising the break-away republics, carving off another chunk off Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. It denied the existence of Ukraine as a country, claiming that it was just a Soviet creation, and ended with a blood-curdling warning to the government in Kiev, which he continues to accuse of being the aggressor despite the fact that it is clearly Russia which is seeking to redraw Ukraine’s borders.
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