Russia has acquired the right to build military bases in Ukraine’s two breakaway regions under treaties signed by President Vladimir Putin with their separatist leaders. Putin on Monday officially recognized the two breakaway regions – the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic – as independent statelets, defying Western warnings that such a step would be illegal and kill peace negotiations.
Under the two identical friendship treaties, submitted by Putin for ratification by parliament, Russia has the right to build bases in the separatist regions and they, on paper, can do the same in Russia. The parties commit to defend each other and sign separate agreements on military cooperation and on recognition of each other’s borders.
The border issue is significant because the separatists claim parts of the two regions that are currently under the control of Ukraine. A Russian parliament member and former Donetsk political leader told Reuters last month that the separatists would look to Russia to help them wrest control of these areas. The 31-point treaties also say Russia and the breakaway statelets will work to integrate their economies.
These actions drew immediate condemnation from the U.S. as well as the European Union, including states in the bloc’s far east. The United Nations Security Council will meet Monday night and the U.S. is moving its personnel temporarily out of Ukraine and into Poland.
According to Yahoo News, Putin also ordered the Defense Ministry to send what he called “peacekeeping forces” to the separatist regions. Moscow continues to deny its plans to invade and the question now becomes what the U.S. and its allies would define as an invasion, and what will trigger the bigger sanctions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine after recognizing them as independent on Monday, accelerating a crisis the West fears could unleash a major war.
A Reuters witness saw tanks and other military hardware moving through the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk after Putin issued a decree recognizing the breakaway regions and told Russia’s defense ministry to send in forces to “keep the peace”.
The moves drew U.S. and European condemnation and vows of new sanctions although it was unclear whether it was Putin’s first major step toward a full-scale offensive in Ukraine that Western governments have warned about for weeks.
A senior U.S. official said the deployment to breakaway enclaves already controlled by separatists loyal to Moscow did not yet constitute a “further invasion” that would trigger the harshest sanctions, but that a wider military campaign could come at any time.
