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.