Russia celebrates annexation of Ukrainian territories

On Friday in Moscow’s Red Square there is a large blue stage with the names of four Ukrainian regions and the inscriptions: “People’s choice” and “Together forever”. Later there will be a celebration of the alleged homecoming of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia. Employees of the city administration were asked to show their “attitude as citizens” by taking part in the event – ​​not entirely voluntarily, of course. In times of mobilization, which affects almost every family in one form or another, very few really feel like celebrating.

Annexation before approval of the chambers of parliament

It was completely different in the Great Kremlin Palace, at least that’s what state television reported. Governors of Russian regions testified to their pride at the “historic event”: In the George Hall, President Vladimir Putin completed the incorporation of the two “people’s republics” Donetsk and Luhansk and the areas of the south-eastern Ukrainian regions of Cherson and Zaporizhia occupied by Russian troops into the Russian Federation. Putin and the leaders of the four territories, Denis Pushilin, Leonid Pasechnik, Vladimir Saldo and Yevgeny Balitsky signed the relevant documents. At the beginning of the week, the two chambers of parliament should agree to the process. On Friday night, Putin recognized the independence of Cherson and Zaporizhia, as he had done for the “People’s Republics” on the eve of the attack on Ukraine in February.

The President’s appearance before the deputies of the State Duma and the Federation Council, the provincial governors, ministers and other high officials and dignitaries was expected with some trepidation. The shock caused by the mobilization has not yet been digested; some augurs suspected further announcements in view of a “special military operation” that would not bring the successes hoped for by the Kremlin. Instead, Putin launched an all-out attack on the West and especially the United States. The hate and contempt in it were unparalleled even in Putin.

First, however, he stated that the citizens of the four areas had made a “clear choice”. Their admission into the federation restores a historical unity for which the forefathers fought over the centuries, especially in these regions. The Kremlin chief recalled the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991: At that time, the power elite dissolved the Union with the stroke of a pen and without consulting the population. This has separated millions of citizens from their homes and led to a national catastrophe.

But now millions of Russians are returning to their historic homeland. “Citizens of Donbass, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions are our citizens forever,” he said to thunderous applause from those present. However, he also combined this with an appeal and a warning to Kyiv and the West.

Cheap negotiation offer to Kyiv

Putin called on the Ukrainian government to immediately end the war he believes it started eight years ago and to return to the negotiating table. However, Moscow will not question the will of the citizens of the four territories annexed to Russia and will not betray them. In other words, returning these territories to Ukrainian control is out of the question for the Kremlin. He expects the necessary respect from Kyiv. That cannot be an honest offer to negotiate.

In doing so, Putin is following the constitution reformed in 2020, which prohibits the surrender of territories once joined to the Russian Federation. But it is also about a deeply ideological point of view: “We will not let ours fall” – this sentence is at the core of the ideology of “Russki Mir” (“Russian world”). He announced that Russia would defend the territories with all available means. This presumably implies the nuclear threat he made to NATO in his September 21 speech.

Before that, his spokesman had already said in response to a corresponding question that any future attack on these areas would be counted as aggression against Russia. The exact boundary of the regions Cherson and Zaporischja – Russian Zaporozhye – is not entirely clear; Larger parts of Zaporizhia, including the regional capital of the same name, are under Ukrainian control. Significant parts of Donetsk are also not controlled by the «People’s Republic». On the day of the ceremonial connection, another defeat with potentially far-reaching consequences was foreseeable: the strategically important city of Liman in Donetsk was about to fall. In Zaporizhia, rockets hit an aid convoy – the war opponents blamed each other.

Destructive US hegemony

Putin did not go into the course of the war at all. Instead, he wanted to portray the actual enemy. He filled a good part of his almost 45-minute speech with a mixture of obviously abysmal hatred, unbridled anger and deep-seated contempt for the West and the all-dominating USA. They were always concerned with subjugating the world in order to derive their own financial benefit from it. The hegemony of the US, which also subjugated its own allies – Germany, Japan and South Korea are still American occupied territories – is directed against those who want to retain their sovereignty, he said.

They would also have wanted to colonize Russia and destroy it with its independent culture, history and philosophy. But Russia refuses to live under the West’s made-up rules and submit to Western totalitarianism, despotism and apartheid. In the 1990s he only treated Russia so kindly because it was weak and he was able to rob it. Instead of democracy, the West brings oppression, instead of freedom, violence. During World War II, Americans would have wantonly destroyed German cities to create fear.

He called the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a precedent – an indication that Putin therefore does not see a Russian use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war as such: the Americans started it. Again and again he accused the European governments of betraying their own people because, as “vassals of the USA”, they had submitted to the sanctions regime and destroyed their own economic foundations. Even the sanctions weren’t enough for the “Anglo-Saxons,” he said, accusing them of destroying the two Nord Stream natural gas pipelines. This theory had previously been spread by the head of the Russian foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin.

Shadows over the celebrations

Putin’s almost delusional reckoning with the West and the USA left open the question of how the war in Ukraine should continue. The day before he had had to admit that mistakes had been made during mobilization that should be corrected immediately. The shock that the drafts caused in the population, who had previously been kept away from the war in Ukraine, mars the jubilee celebrations. Russia’s expansion at the expense of Ukraine should have lifted spirits. It seemed almost vulgar when, at the end of the ceremony in the magnificent Kremlin hall, after the national anthem had been played, Putin sought proximity to the burly leaders of the four new federal subjects and the whole hall shouted “Rossiya, Rossiya!” agreed.