After Putin’s Anti-Ukrainian rant, Russia recognizes LNR/DNR

Russian president Vladimir Putin delivered an
hour-long speech in favor of Russia recognizing the temporarily occupied areas
of Ukraine (ORDLO) as independent lands. The Feb 21. speech featured gross, outright
lies about Ukrainian statehood such as modern Ukraine being a creation of
Lenin, and Moscow giving Ukraine independence in 1991. After the speech, Putin
signed the decrees recognizing DNR and LNR, with signatures from Denis Pushilin
and Leonid Pasechnik for DNR and LNR respectively, kremlin.ru announced.

In accordance with Article 3 of the recognition, the
Russian military officially moved into the territories within hours of the
signing.

James Hydzik: The ramifications
of the recognition will affect European relations permanently. First, the
anti-Ukrainian rant, according to some observers, was not a historical
treatise, but the groundwork for justifying any further invasion into Ukraine
because it is not a country – something Putin said in 2008. Next, with
recognizing ORDLO, the Minsk Agreements are now in tatters. Negotiations in
that direction are ended and the idea of re-incorporating the areas into
Ukraine as a tool to prevent the overall westward push of the Ukrainian
government has been dropped. Relations with Ukraine are essentially impossible
now, and further abroad, the reaction has been uniformly negative.

The looming question now is whether the military move
toward the Line of Contact with Ukraine will end there and when a further
invasion will occur in the rest of Donbas.