The signing ceremony, to take place in the Grand Kremlin Palace on Friday, marks Putin’s attempt to annex the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, even though Russia does not fully control any of them either militarily or politically.
The move, in defiance of stern international warnings including from President Biden, potentially slams the door on diplomacy for years to come, and almost certainly assures further escalation of the war in Ukraine, with Kyiv insisting it will fight to reclaim all of its lands and Western allies promising to send more weapons and economic assistance.
Putin’s recent declaration of a partial military mobilization, intended to activate hundreds of thousands of reinforcements for deployment to Ukraine, and the sabotage this week of two Nord Stream natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea have raised fears that the Russian leader is readying for a long hybrid conflict with NATO. Russian officials have also warned that it could use a nuclear weapon to defend the Ukrainian territories once they are absorbed into Russia.
Putin’s move, which is a blatant violation international law, will further isolate Russia, triggering new Western sanctions. But Putin nonetheless appears to hope that a long, brutal war will eventually fray Western support for Ukraine and curtail military and economic aid that is provided a lifeline to Kyiv.
Multiple Russian setbacks in the war have exposed the poor shape of Russia’s military and left the Russian leader more vulnerable than at any time in office. Putin has been criticized from the right by pro-war hawks furious over the military missteps, and from the left by opponents of the war. More than 200,000 Russians have fled the country in recent days to escape the partial mobilization.
A wave of newly-mobilized Russian soldiers already arriving in Ukraine with relatively little preparation will likely not be enough for Moscow to launch offensives in coming weeks to get full control of the regions it is annexing, according to military experts, but may help Russia to hold territory through the winter.
Moscow’s proxy leaders of the four partially-occupied regions traveled to Moscow on Wednesday for the signing of the treaties. Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament, meeting Monday and Tuesday, is certain to approve the treaties and then adopt amendments to the constitution to formalize the annexation, in a process mirroring that of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The annexation marks perhaps the darkest moment in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War, as NATO warned on Thursday that the damage to the two Nord Stream pipelines was the result of “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage.”
“We, as Allies, have committed to prepare for, deter and defend against the coercive use of energy and other hybrid tactics by state and nonstate actors,” NATO said in a statement. “Any deliberate attack against Allies’ critical infrastructure would be met with a united and determined response.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, on Thursday stepped up Russian accusations over the sabotage, saying that the damage occurred in Danish and Swedish waters, countries that she said were “stuffed” with American weapons and “under the control” of CIA.
Russian state-controlled media aired analysts and pundits saying that the attack could only have been carried out by the United States or Britain. Western analysts, meanwhile, said the sabotage, likely carried out by a state actor, appeared more likely to have been perpetrated by Russia.
