Russia Will Recognize 2 Separatist Regions in Ukraine, Kremlin Says | Hacker News Reader

Russia Will Recognize 2 Separatist Regions in Ukraine, Kremlin Says

nytimes.com

Its interesting what the West will do. This is agression on the Ukraine and should trigger sanctions. Sadly, I am not sure the EU can come to agreement with harsh sanctions

> This is agression on the Ukraine

Someone steals a chunk of Ukraine territory. Six years later, someone else admits that it happened, and that's aggression? The aggression was taking it in the first place!

(Yes, the one who took it in the first place is the same one who "recognized" the taking six years later...)

The only way this is aggression is if Russia uses it (or Ukraine's or the west's response to it) as a pretext to take more territory.

It is a bit more complicated, because on paper Russia until today recognized separatist-controlled territory as a part of Ukraine. The problem is that DNR/LNR state that their borders are the same as Donetsk/Luhansk oblast, which is a much bigger region. Second, Russia involvement with 'republics' was mainly with keeping status quo since spring of 2015, that changed in 2021, and what they are going to do now, nobody knows.

So is Russia recognizing them, or is it also recognizing their claim?

That is, the US recognizes China, but does not recognize their claim of the Nine-Dash Line. You can do one but not the other.

> I am not sure the EU can come to agreement with harsh sanctions

That's the point. This has the benefit of driving wedges between NATO members and making NATO look weak and ineffective.

Good, because those sanctions would hurt Europe badly and pull it into a deep recession while it would not affect the US much.

I think Kosovo set a good precedence of "peaceful" separation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Kosovo

There is no clear ethnic separation in Ukraine, a division is mostly political or a question of identity.

There is a language separation which would play into the identity question.

Well, if only it was so simple. Majority Russian-speaking Kyiv voted for pro-Western politicians since early 90's. Russian language dominates in every major southern and eastern city, that does not mean that every Russian speaker wants to join Russia (in the very least).

why "will"? It already did.. you are behind the news.. (your media probably waits for the state department to say what it is, I suppose..)

Putin made this specific official announcement a few minutes before the article was published.

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