Russia recognizes Luhansk and Donetsk republics: West vows sanctions

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 22 Feb 2022 by Alex Teddy
On February 21 Putin announced that he was recognizing the two regions that have broken away from Ukraine. Russia now regards the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) as independent countries. Putin announced that Russian troops had moved into these regions as peacekeepers. The announcement was widely anticipated and was made in a live TV broadcast. Putin said that Ukraine had no real history of statehood. He repeated that NATO has broken its promise in expanding eastwards and has refused to disavow Ukrainian membership.Moscow's move has been condemned by many Western countries as a blatant breach of international law. They have promised to initiate sanctions. LPR and DPR only control about a third of the Luhansk Region and Donetsk Region as recognized by Ukraine. The Chairman of the Russian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee said Moscow does not intend LPR and DPR to expand to take in the whole of Luhansk or Donbas regions. Ukraine's President Zelensky said he does not believe in a full escalation of the situation, but is examining breaking off diplomatic relations with Russia. The Russian markets have taken a dive since the news as has the RUB. The Russian Central Bank has offered liquidity to banks hit by the market negativity. The US has said it will not cut Russia off from SWIFT yet.If the West went for maximum sanctions then it would leave nothing left to escalate to if there were a full-scale war. Extreme sanctions might make Russia calculate that as things cannot get worse then they might as well be a full-scale war, though there is no clear indication of this for now. In many ways the move is unsurprising - as it formaliz...

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