Putin advances in Donbas, but shows signs that he has more plans for Ukraine

President Vladimir Putin has taken the Ukrainian crisis into a new and more dangerous phase with a barrage of words and actions that suggest his ultimate goals go far beyond extending Russian rule over two hard-pressed breakaway regions of Ukraine.

On Monday night, Putin signed friendship treaties with the so-called Donets and Lugansk people’s republics proclaimed by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, a move the West denounced as illegal and which was subject to immediate sanctions, including those imposed on Russian banks and a major new gas pipeline.

But it was the extraordinary televised speech that preceded the signing that offered deeper clues to Putin’s thinking, twisting centuries of history in an hour-long diatribe in which he portrayed Ukraine as an artificial nation with no state tradition.

Kremlin watchers said his speech appeared to be an attempt to justify deeper aggression against Ukraine and a possible new invasion, eight years after it captured and annexed Crimea.

“He has questioned Ukraine’s right to sovereignty and declared that it was a historical mistake, a historical accident that Ukraine existedsaid Gerhard Mangott, a professor at Austria’s Innsbruck University and a member of a Russia think tank that meets annually with Putin.

“So most likely his ultimate ambition is to destroy this Ukrainian state, or at least to split Ukraine into two halves.”, he said, with Russia controlling the eastern part of the country.

In key follow-up remarks on Tuesday, Putin said he was recognizing the entirety of the Donets and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, which together comprise an area known as the Donbas, as forming his “republics” separatists, although only a fraction of that territory is controlled by the separatists.

As Russia asserts the right, under its new treaties, to send troops and build military bases, there is a risk that it could enter into an open war with Ukraine to expand separatist territories.

“Place in history”

Putin has always denied that he plans to invade Ukraine again, but his huge military deployment on its borders since November has sent Russian stocks, government bonds and the ruble into sharp declines. His latest moves have sparked anxiety among the Russian elite.

“We are all confused. We are all very nervous. No one knows what the endgame is,” said a former high-ranking official.

Putin’s latest move has dashed any hope of ending Ukraine’s eight-year separatist war that had revived peace deals signed in 2014 and 2015, an ominous shift from diplomacy to force.

“By abandoning the Minsk agreements, Russia has deprived itself of one avenue of possible long-term political influence over Ukraine and will now seek another.”, said Oleg Ignatov, principal analyst for Russia at the International Crisis Group.

In his speech, Putin sounded like a man who, after more than two decades as Russia’s supreme leader, is thinking more about his legacy than the casualties and economic costs of a full-scale war with Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week that Putin might not be thinking logically and that sanctions might not deter an “irrational actor.” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called him “totally paranoid.”

“We have seen a shift from Putin, the pragmatic, rational, calculating kind of leader, to someone who is increasingly looking for his place in history, who sees himself on a historic mission to correct injustices.said Neil Melvin of the RUSI think tank in London.

That has caused a shift in Putin’s risk calculus, in which the short-term costs of his actions pale in comparison to the larger historical picture, he said.

Melvin, who has just returned from meetings with senior Russian officials in Moscow, said the Ukraine crisis was only just beginning.

“To be frank, 200,000 troops are not stationed on the border with Ukraine and the biggest European security crisis of the last 40 years is invoked if the only intention is to expand control over two small territories that are already controlled”, he stated.

The next stage would be determined by the entry of Russian forces into Donets and Luhansk and possible moves to expand into wider territory, depending on how Ukraine responds.

“I think that’s what we have to look for now.” Melvin said. “It is how the trigger will be pulled for this broader military incursion“, he pointed.