Russia has recognized the independence of two separatist enclaves inside Ukraine and will send in Russian forces as “peacekeepers” to protect them, defying efforts on the part of the U.S. and its allies to tamp down the crisis in Eastern Europe, President Vladimir Putin confirmed in a national address Monday.
Mr. Putin told both French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of his decision earlier in the day, which came after a morning of consultations with his top security aides at the Kremlin.
“I consider it necessary to take a long-overdue decision: To immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic,” Mr. Putin said. It was not clear when the Russian forces would be deployed or how large the force would be, but it would be a mission crossing onto soil that virtually all of the world still recognizes as sovereign Ukrainian territory.
The Biden administration said the president and his aides are closely monitoring the situation, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy convened an emergency meeting of the country’s National Security and Defense Council to discuss the move. U.S. officials announced sanctions against the breakaway Ukrainian enclaves and promised more were on the way, and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted that the U.K. would announce its own package of sanctions Tuesday.
“We strongly condemn President Putin’s decision to recognize the so-called ’Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics’ as ’independent,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “This decision represents a complete rejection of Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements, directly contradicts Russia’s claimed commitment to diplomacy, and is a clear attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Mr. Putin revealed the recognition decision at the end of a nearly hourlong address that rehashed many of what he said were grievances for Russia and pro-Russian elements inside Ukraine since the end of the Cold War.
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“Ukraine has become a colony of puppets,” Mr. Putin said. “Ukrainians squandered not only everything we gave them during the Soviet Union times, but even everything they inherited from the Russian empire.”
He also attacked NATO for what he said was the Western military alliance’s refusal to take seriously Russian security “red lines” in the region.
The timing of the recognition, which follows on Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, is unclear. Nor was it clear whether diplomatic recognition was the prelude to a Russian military move to support the self-proclaimed “republics” in the far eastern Ukrainian regions around the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The Ukrainian government swiftly denounced the moves and said the world was watching Russia’s aggression closely.
“Everyone realizes [the] consequences,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba said on Twitter. “A lot of emotions out there, but it’s exactly now that we all should calmly focus on de-escalation efforts. No other way.”
Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a long-stalemated negotiation on resolving the insurgency in the two regions. Mr. Putin’s decision Monday would short-circuit that diplomacy and will almost certainly trigger sanctions from the U.S. and leading European powers.
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Russia’s move stops short — for now — of a full-scale invasion of its neighbor that Washington was warning about, but will still bring sharp consequences.
“We call upon President Putin to respect international law and the Minsk agreements and expect him not to recognize the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told journalists after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, according to the Reuters news agency.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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