Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military to send troops to the breakaway republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in a mission he described as a peacekeeping operation.
The order came after Putin signed a decree recognizing the sovereignty of the two republics. Putin also instructed Russia’s Foreign Ministry to establish diplomatic relations with the DPR and LPR.
The eastern Ukraine separatists don’t control all of the territories they claim in the Donbas. At this point, it’s not clear if the Russian troops will try to push Ukraine out of the claimed territory or if they will be deployed to the line of control, the buffer zone set by the Minsk agreements, which established the fragile ceasefire in the Donbas.
The DPR and LPR separatists made renewed calls for Russian recognition and military assistance amid a spike in ceasefire violations. The recognition means Russia no longer believes that the conflict can be settled diplomatically through the Minsk agreements.
The Russian troop deployment could be enough for the US to label it as an “invasion” of Ukraine, which could trigger major sanctions against Russia. The White House responded to Putin’s recognition by implementing sanctions that ban US citizens from doing business in the DPR and LPR and hasn’t yet responded to the peacekeeping deployment.
The DPR and LPR first declared independence in 2014 after the US-backed coup in Kyiv. The US has long accused Russia of having troops deployed in the Donbas, something Moscow has denied.
Well, Biden gets his “Invasion.” Now let’s see what he does about. As Martyanov says, no more talk. This is Putin’s response to the summit request. Also, Lavrov is now talking about restoring Syria’s “territorial integrity” – in other words, time for the US to leave Syria.
The Saker suggests everyone take a breath and wait for actual responses by all parties as opposed to mere statements. Good advice. Which no one, including me, will probably take. But we’re all playing catch-up right now.
Syria’s territorial integrity? How about the Golan Heights?
Who knows? I suspect Russia isn’t willing to go that far yet. It’s more about kicking out the US over time and finishing off the jihadists in Idlib.
At least you are honest good Richard!
It is my understanding that it was Germany that wanted Russia to build Nordstream II. Why didn’t Putin expect Germany to pay for half the cost of building it? That way Germany would have some skin in the game. As of now it will be totally Russia’s loss.
Not much of a loss. Reportedly, due to the large increase in gas price over the last few months, Russia has recovered most of the cost already despite the line not even being used. In any event, they have Power of Siberia 2 being constructed, so China and the east will make up any slack, apparently.
That’s good to know. Thank you!
“Not much of a loss.”
It’s a HUGE loss — to peace. When goods are crossing borders, armies tend not to cross those same borders. A Germany more closely tied economically to Russia by things like energy trade is far less likely to let itself be used as a platform for military threats to its trading partner.
True. But I was referring to the loss to Russia. In any event, Germany appears to want to make your statement irrelevant. They’re already well tied to the Russian economy and they’ve just thrown that out the window. The real threat to peace isn’t Germany, however. It’s the US. Germany yoked itself to the US and NATO and that’s why they’re a threat to Russia. And now they get to pay for that mistake.
I understand that Dave’s role war is to combat fake and injurious imperialist american narratives, but it really is non-sensical for him to just take Putin’s words and just accept that the deployment is for a peacekeeping role. It might be, but it is very much unlikely. I am sure that if it was an equivelant action by the U.S. he would cast doubt and at least use quotation marks for the for peacekeeping. It just shows you that is role is not to inform but to fight an information war.
It’s always info wars, just ask
Technically, sure. But humans are not robots. The selaration of those regions came on
the heels of right wing rampage against Russian polulation in post Maidan situation. Let us not forget Odessa and burning of anti-Maidan protesters. One among many violent acts.
Kyev new regime went after the region twice, and lost twice. Europe intervened to save the coup, and Minsk agreements were born.
Nobody fought harder for Minsk than Russia. Minsk was dead after Ukrainian constitutional change made it impossible.
Minsk is dead, and all that remain was to recover the region by force, a plan made obvious in Kyev government statemenrmts.
Morally, Russia holds high ground, not abandoning Donbas to Ukrainian proven capacity for violence.
Legally, there are many precedents for the act. Kosovo and Syria, precedent setting legal explanations. Abkhazia abd South Ossetia used Kosovo precedent,
In balance Rusdia has a high moral ground here, Ukraine and NATO do not, starting with illegal 2014 coup,
Legally, this is debatable.
In the end, among states, “legality” is a fiction. As an anarchist, I think “legality” is always a fiction, among states or anywhere else. In this case, it doesn’t matter. No one can do anything about it. The only question that matters now is if Ukraine decides to stop the shelling. Because if it doesn’t, as the song I’m listening to right now says, “it’s gonna get real, real messy.” Even now, Zelensky is talking about “not ceding” and wants a clear timeline for acceptance to NATO and is arranging for a $5 billion EU “military mission” inside Ukraine. Guy never learns.
“I am sure that if it was an equivelant action by the U.S. he would cast doubt and at least use quotation marks for the for peacekeeping.”
If Russia had instigated a coup on our borders, did war games on our borders like NATO, supplied our neighbors on our borders with lethal weapons to be used against us and the Warsaw Pact was expanded to those very borders, I think Dave would have been very critical. Leaving all of that out of the equation makes your point sound reasonable but that’s one HUGE set of facts to leave out.
We’ll know if it’s really a Peacekeeping mission if Putin declares a no fly zone
LOL
The United States is an empire.
Russia at this time is not.
The ‘peacekeeping’ expression is a direct shot at how the US and its allies hypocritically use violence to expand power. The Russian Ukrainians in Donbas would have been murdered like Bosnians without Russian protection.
The Duma basically gave Putin the go-ahead, and he took it. The peacekeepers will now serve as a tripwire force that Ukraine would be insane to attack directly. The Donbas now has to figure out how to manage as independent republics while all this is going on.
I’ll admit, I’m surprised it came to this as quickly as it did. I figured another month of observing actions in the Donbas, at least.
Even Alexander Mercouris in his video today which was evidently made before Putin’s announcement suggested that Putin would wait until maybe Thursday to see if Macron could pull a rabbit out of a hat. Clearly Putin didn’t have any confidence in Macron. I wake up this afternoon to all this and I’m like, “well, that changed fast.” Only thing I’m interested in now is whether Ukraine takes the hint and stops the shelling – because if they don’t…
Speaking of which…
DPR Claims Shelling Against Donetsk From Ukraine
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/DPR-Claims-Shelling-Against-Donetsk-From-Ukraine-20220221-0013.html
The Donbass will be just fine. Plenty of gas, passage back and forth into Russia. Just keep the d*mn fascists out of there.
This reminds me of the time Putin stepped in and stopped the war in Syria. They sure killed a lot of ISIS/Al-Qaeda in the following months.
I think this is closer to Georgia in 2008. I need to look up how it happened that Russian peacekeepers were already there in the first place. I only have an idea about what happened afterward. I understand that Georgia attacked, Russia went to the UNSC, then counterattacked, took Georgia down, recognized the two republics and insured their security. Sounds exactly like what Russia plans for Donbass. They didn’t take the capital of Georgia, either, in that case, and that may be true for Kiev in this case. But that depended on Georgia’s government then and it will depend on Kiev’s now. Ukraine now is more messed up than Georgia then, so things may go worse for Ukraine this time.
I looked up Ukraine on Wikipedia to try and get a grasp of her history. I felt like I needed PhD in Ukrainians Studies to understand it all. That country has been a mixed up mess forever it seems. I couldn’t keep track of it all.
Putin‘s Video address from last night ( English translation ) – 1 hour. Most illuminating insights. lots of discussion about Ukraine getting looted and the ordinary people in poverty after Maiden 2014
https://youtu.be/GjMnTo85S4A
You’ll never hear about this on FOX from MIC shill Jennifer Griffin.
Our regimist Media is embarrassing. That might be why regimist Media has a small and declining audience. On the other hand, Sanizdat now has a audience many times larger than Regimist Media.
“Putin deploys troops in Donbass” – if one trusts main stream media, Russian troops are deployed there since 2014. So nothing new about that.
What is new – Putin promised the decommunization of Ukraine.
Although the Asia Times is not an antiwar screed I always find interesting tidbits in it almost every day. Recently there was a notice that some Asian countries are beginning to trade with one another in local currency instead of dollars. If this is true it may decrease the threat of sanctions for countries like Iran. And somewhat for China too. If that continues to spread then our government will lose all control of the international trade markets by sanctions.
off topic…sort of, but…can’t something be done about the hores who upvote every single post. It’s a cockroach infestation.
Disqus upvote bots have taken over the world.
Not very good whores either. I have yet to hear of an offer.
Russia is doing in the Donbas region what NATO failed to do in Bosnia-Herzogovina – protect minority civilians from ethnic nationalist genocide.
Standard protocol… The US deploys “Peace Keepers” all the time…