Putin annexation of four Ukrainian regions decried as illegal land grab

Shortly after Putin made his speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a formal request for Ukraine to join NATO. In 2017, Ukraine changed its constitution to state that NATO membership is a national objective. Still, it remains highly unlikely that Ukraine will be admitted into NATO any time soon because it is at war with Russia.

In 2008, then-U.S. President George W. Bush ratcheted up tensions with Moscow by declaring at a NATO summit that one day Ukraine and Georgia would become alliance members. Moscow had warned against such a move for years, saying that NATO's enlargement was endangering its security.

Ukraine's potential membership in NATO – a position driven mostly by pro-Western anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalists – has been a source of conflict ever since Ukraine gained independence in 1991. NATO is now arming and training Ukrainian soldiers and providing military intelligence to Kyiv. Russia in turn openly says it is now at war with NATO.

The leaders of the four Ukrainian regions seized by Russia were present at the annexation ceremony at the Kremlin and signed so-called “accession treaties” with Putin. Large crowds gathered in Red Square to celebrate the annexation, which was defined by Russians as a correction of history. Putin called the annexation of Ukrainian territory as a restoration of Russia’s “historical unity.” Large parts of Ukraine were under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union for about 300 years.  

Putin’s speech to a stone-faced audience of Russian elites, military brass and Kremlin officials was a vehement condemnation of the West contrasted by praise for the Soviet Union as a power that “reduced poverty and inequality” in the 20th century.   

“They don't accept our philosophers, our prosperity,” he said. “The West wants to destroy Russia.”

It was a speech woven with long-held Russian grievances, such as supposed broken promises made to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand east once Germany was unified and the unilateral scrapping of disarmament treaties by the United States.  

He accused the West of “lying” and “deceit” and selfishly deciding who has “a right to self-determination and who doesn’t,” a reference to the many military interventions the U.S. and its NATO allies have undertaken since the end of the Cold War. He blamed the West for causing millions of refugees and devastating countries with its wars.   

“Russia is a great power, a great civilization,” he said. “We are defending our independence.”

He blamed the West for an unacceptable “Russophobia” being spread around the world. “One reason for Russophobia is that we did not develop the way they wanted, do trade that was to their advantage,” he said. “The West has not succeeded in taking Russia.”

Describing Western values related to transgender rights as “Satanism,”  he vowed that Russia was leading the way to a “multi-polar world” where countries will develop how they want to.

To many in the West, allowing such a doctrine to replace a world order based on humanistic, Western liberal democratic ideals portends a future where autocratic governments, such as those overseen by Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, are allowed to carry on doing global trade and gathering military and economic strength even as they grow more repressive.

Upon taking office, Biden declared the fight of the future would be between autocracies and democracies.

“We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future and direction of our world,” Biden said in February 2021 during a virtual speech at the Munich Security Conference. The annual conference took place online because the coronavirus pandemic was raging.

“We're at an inflection point between those who argue that given all the challenges we face – from the fourth industrial revolution to the global pandemic – that autocracy is the best way forward, they argue,” he said. “I believe [with] every ounce of my being that democracy will and must prevail … We must demonstrate that democracy can still deliver for our people in this changed world.”

The White House has called China and Russia the adversaries of democracy and said the Kremlin wants to weaken the EU and NATO.

Putin said Friday, “Dear friends, today we are fighting for a fair way, for Russia first of all. We need to overturn this shameful Western hegemony.”   

He described the fight in Ukraine as “battles for our people, for the great historical Russia.”

Western officials have long worried that Russia might seek to reconquer lands that once fell under the rule of tsars and the Soviets which became independent following the collapse of the U.S.S.R. There are sizeable Russian populations in many countries in Russia’s periphery, such as Estonia, Latvia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Ukraine.

With the pretext of defending Russian populations outside its border, Moscow has engaged in military interventions in Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine. All three nations are seeking NATO protection.   

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Follow @cainburdeau

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