February 21, 2022:
Information
Clearing House-- Earlier in
the day, in an emergency session of the Russian Security Council, the Russian
president consulted with ministers, senior security officials and members of the
government to present their views on the matter and its potential political,
economic and strategic implications.
Russia will recognize the independence of
the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics,
President Vladimir Putin has announced.
"I deem it necessary to make a decision that
should have been made long ago - to
immediately recognize the sovereignty and
independence of the Donetsk People's
Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic,"
Putin said.
The Russian president signed the
corresponding documents and asked the
Federal Assembly to support the signing
of treaties of cooperation with the
Donbass breakaways.
"Ukraine is not just a neighbour to us,
but an inherent part of our history, culture
and spiritual space. They are our
comrades...our family, people we have blood
and family ties with," Putin said in an
address to the nation Monday night
outlining his decision.
"Modern Ukraine was completely created by
Russia, more precisely by Communist Russia.
This process was started after the 1917
Revolution," Putin said. The president
suggested that Ukraine saw its territory
expand at "historic Russia's" expense after
the Revolution, and at Poland's expense
after the Second World War, with Poland
receiving compensation in the form of German
lands to its west. He also recalled that
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev cut Crimea
off from the Russian Soviet republic's
jurisdiction and handed it over to the
Ukrainian Soviet republic in the 1954.
After the collapse of the USSR, Putin said,
Ukraine was taken over by nationalist elites
and oligarchs who had "nothing to do with"
its independence. At the same time, Putin
recalled, Russia continued to work with
post-Soviet Ukraine, to act in an "open and
honest manner with respect to Ukraine's
interests," including through growing trade
cooperation, which reached tens of billions
of dollars by the early 2010s.
NATO Danger
Putin suggested Ukrainian radicals backed by
US forces took advantage of popular anger
over corruption in 2014 to stage a coup,
with the country's current 'patriotic'
authorities leading the country toward
desovereignization and total subservience to
the West, while marginalizing the
Russian-speaking community, undermining the
rights of Orthodox believers, and posing a
danger to Russia's security.
Putin accused the current authorities in
Ukraine of seeking to drag other countries
into a war with Russia. "We have also heard
statements about Ukraine threatening to
create a nuclear weapon," he noted. The
Russian president suggested this was not an
"idle threat," with Ukraine possessing
Soviet-era nuclear and delivery technology
to build such a weapon. "We cannot help but
react to this real threat," he warned. Putin
added that Moscow could not exclude the
danger of Ukraine receiving assistance from
the West in building a nuke, given the
billions of dollars in military assistance
already sent to Ukraine by NATO nations.
Putin warned that Ukraine's entry into
the Western alliance would constitute a
"direct threat" to Russia's security,
and that the alliance's training centers
already established in the country
amount to military bases - something
illegal under Ukraine's own
Constitution.
Putin recalled that despite posing no threat
to the Western alliance after the Cold War,
Russia has received five waves of NATO
expansion - despite promises in the early
1990s not to do so. "They just lied to us,"
he said.
The Russian president also pointed to the
deployment of dual-use US missile defence
systems in Eastern Europe which can be used
to strike targets deep inside Russia, and
said the military threat to Moscow will
increase "manyfold" as the number of these
systems inevitably grows. He added that the
deployment of NATO radar equipment in
Ukraine would allow them to effectively
control airspace inside Russia.
Security Guarantee
Proposals Ignored
Putin recalled the security guarantee
proposals laid out by Russia in December,
but said that unfortunately, the West has
rejected them and threatened to introduce
new sanctions and otherwise attempt "to
contain the development of Russia."
Earlier Monday,
speaking an emergency session of the
Russian Security Council in the Kremlin,
Putin said that the negotiations process on
the Donbass has reached a dead-end.
He also specified that the discussion on the
future of the self-proclaimed republics was
about recognizing them as independent
states, not a matter of their becoming part
of Russia.
Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of
Russia's lower house of parliament,
asked Putin to to consider the
parliamentary appeal approved last
week to recognize the DPR and LNR as
independent states. The lawmaker
pointed out that over 1.2 million
residents of the Donbass have
already applied for Russian
citizenship.
For her part,
Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of
the Federation Council - Russia's
upper house of parliament, said the
time had come to make a decision on
the Donbass, and called the
situation in the region a
"humanitarian disaster and genocide"
in the heart of Europe. She noted
that throughout the 7+ year
conflict, Russia has consistently
stood in favour of a diplomatic and
political solution to the conflict.
"No one listened to us. There was an
imitation of the Minsk Agreements,"
she said. At the same time, the
chairwoman accused the West of
trying to push Russians and
Ukrainians, two fraternal Slavic
peoples, into a war.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail
Mishustin expressed support for the
measure, saying it would be
appropriate in the absence of any
progress on the Minsk Agreements. He
added that officials have spent some
time preparing for the West's
potential reaction to a Russian
recognition of the Donbass, with
these risks said to be accounted
for.
Later Monday, in connection
with the comments made by officials
at the Russian Security Council
meeting, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky declared that he
has carried out urgent consultations
with President Emmanuel Macron of
France and German Chancellor Olaf
Scholz, and called a meeting of the
National Security and Defence
Council of Ukraine.
Putin also spoke with Macron and
Scholz, telling them he intends to
sign a decree on Donbass. According
to the Kremlin, the French and
German leaders expressed
'disappointment'.
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