Vladimir Putin’s Forcible Annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by the Kremlin Palace on Friday, April 14: “Is Russia a Colony?”

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved to formally annex four Ukrainian territories, signing what he calls “accession treaties” that world powers refuse to recognize. Putin is trying to change the map of Europe at the expense of Ukraine.

Once the process is officially complete, Moscow will recognize four Ukrainian regions as Russian territory: Luhansk and Donetsk – home to two Russian-backed breakaway republics where fighting has been ongoing since 2014 – as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, two areas in southern Ukraine that have been occupied by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began.

Putin insisted that the referendums reflected the will of millions of people despite reports that voting may have taken place at times at gun point.

Friday’s ceremony echoed Putin’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, following a Kremlin-backed referendum there in 2014 — a move that most countries still do not recognize to this day.

The Russian president framed the annexation as an attempt to fix what he sees as a great historical mistake that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Putin doesn’t want to follow in the footsteps of the Soviets or Romanovs. Which might explain his recent desperate moves: the mobilization of 300,000 additional troops – a measure that he had long sought to avoid – and his nuclear weapons saber-rattling.

Russia will now, despite the widespread international condemnation, forge ahead with its plans to fly its flag over some 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) of Ukrainian territory – the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.

The Russian leader spoke in the chandeliered St. George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace — the same place where he declared in March 2014 that the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was part of Russia.

Russian politicians sat in the audience for the speech of Putin, as well as four Russian-imposed leaders of the occupied Ukrainian regions.

The West is trying to destroy Russia, said Mr. Putin. They “want to see us as a colony,” Mr. Putin said. It is very important that all countries give up their sovereignty for the sake of the United States.

The Kremlin Created a Precedent in the War Between Ukraine and the United States: Vladimir Putin, the Donbas, and the U.S.

He showed how Western military actions stretching back centuries included the British Opium War in China in the 19th century and the Allied firebombing of Germany in the Vietnam and Korean Wars.

He said that the United States was the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war. Mr. Putin said that they created a precedent.

The large-scale Russian bombardment struck several cities – including far reaches of western Ukraine close to NATO’s eastern flank – across the country almost simultaneously, propelling the conflict into a new phase and coming just as much of the country was starting to roar back to life.

Friday’s events include a celebration on Red Square. Official ratification of the decrees will happen next week, said Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman.

The moves follow staged referendums that were held in occupied territory during a war. Much of the provinces’ civilian populations has fled fighting since the war began in February, and people who did vote sometimes did so at gunpoint.

Cementing Russia’s hold over the two eastern regions, an area collectively known as the Donbas that Mr. Putin considers his primary prize, could allow the Kremlin to declare a victory at a time when hawks in Russia have criticized Russian forces for not doing enough to prevent recent breakneck gains by Ukrainian forces in the south and northeast of the country.

But Mr. Putin nevertheless faces huge hurdles to reassert his control over an increasingly chaotic war, including a recent draft of hundreds of thousands of civilians into military service that has encountered opposition in Russia.

“The people made their choice,” said Putin in a signing ceremony at the Kremlin’s St. George hall. “And that choice won’t be betrayed” by Russia, he said.

The Russian leader didn’t want to talk about the status of annexed territories when he called for the end of hostilities and negotiations with Moscow.

There are banners that say Russia and the newly integrated territories are “together forever” outside of the Kremlin.

The move caps a week that saw the Kremlin choreograph referendums in Russian-occupied territories that purportedly delivered overwhelming majorities in favor of joining Russia.

“The United States will never, never, never recognize Russia’s claims on Ukraine sovereign territory,” Biden said. “This so-called referenda was a sham — an absolute sham — and the results were manufactured in Moscow.”

Putin, however, framed the decision as a historical justice following the breakup of the Soviet Union that had left Russian speakers separated from their homeland — and the West dictating world affairs according to its own rules.

Western powers once again accused Russia of using staged votes to justify its annexation of Ukraine’s territory, often at the barrel of a gun.

The territories will be formally approved by Russia’s parliamentary and constitutional court, which is seen as a foregone conclusion.

As the Russian government works to boost its military strength, a Ukrainian counteroffensive has retaken territory in the south and northeastern parts of the country.

Russian officials warned that the newly incorporated territories would be protected by Russia’s nuclear umbrella.

The timing could not have been worse. Putin lost Lyman just as he was publicly declaring that the Donetsk region – in which Lyman sits – was now annexed by Russia.

Two powerful Putin supporters called for using harsher fighting methods on the day that Lyman fell as Moscow stated that it would not be Russian forever.

But the soldiers interviewed on the Sunday broadcast said they had been forced to retreat because they were fighting not only with Ukrainians, but with NATO soldiers.

“These are no longer toys here. The deputy commander of one battalion told the war correspondent that they were part of a systematic and clear offensive by the army and NATO forces. The soldier said his unit was intercepting conversations between soldiers from Poland and Romania on their radios.

The first casualty in war is truth. It’s impossible to deny that Russia has engaged in a campaign of false advertising to sell its invasion of Ukraine to the public.

The idea that Russia is fighting a broader campaign was repeated in an interview with Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right thinker whose daughter, also a prominent nationalist commentator, was killed by a car bomb in August.

If the prospects for success in Iran’s “Women, life, freedom!” uprising look dim, consider what the prognosis was for Ukraine when what was supposed to be one of the world’s mightiest military forces set out to seize their country.

After the underwater explosions that caused the gas line to go down, both Russian and European leaders called it an act of sabotage.

“The West already accuses us of blowing up the gas pipeline ourselves,” he said. “We must understand the geopolitical confrontation, the war, our war with the West on the scale and extent on which it is unfolding. In other words, we must join this battle with a mortal enemy who does not hesitate to use any means, including exploding gas pipelines.”

The nonstop messaging campaign may be working, at least for now. Many Russians feel threatened by the West, said a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who is from Russia.

Moscow and Tehran have sought to foment their ideologies beyond their borders. The issues of the Ukrainian and Iranian people will have repercussions beyond their countries.

The Rise of Autocracy in Russia, and the Death of a Young Woman in Iran: CNN’s Contribution to the Syrian Uprising

The former CNN producer and correspondent Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is an opinion writer for CNN, columnist for The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Her own views are expressed in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.

On Sunday, almost by accident, two groups of demonstrators came together in London. One person waved Iranian and Ukrainian flags. When they met, they cheered each other, and chanted, “All together we will win.”

For decades autocrats have been gaining ground while democracies looked almost spent, in retreat. When we least expected it, there had been a ferocious pushback against two of the most brazen tyrannies. In Ukraine and in Iran, the people have decided to defy the odds for the sake of their dignity, freedom and self-determination.

Courageous support in places like Afghanistan is being inspired by the bravery shown in the David v. Goliath battles.

The death of a young woman last month in Iran inspired other events. The woman, affectionately known as “Zhina”, died in the custody of morality police after being arrested for disobeying rules that required women to dress modestly.

Iranian women have danced around fires in the night and thrown their headscarf into the flames in defiance of the regime.

The peaceful uprising is not about the hijab; it is about cutting the shackles of oppression, which is why the regime has killed more and more protesters.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/04/opinions/iran-ukraine-autocracies-struggle-democracy-ghitis/index.html

The Cost of Chaos: The Perspectives of the Russian-Iran Civil War and Their Implications on the Security and Security of the World

The civil war in Syria was started by the Russian president a decade ago, in order to save the dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Zelensky was warned by Washington that it was a prime target for Russian aggression, so the Ukrainian president vowed to stay.

That is the worrying thing. In Russia’s bellicose information space, the talk isn’t about ending a horrific and wasteful war: It’s about correcting the mistakes that forced a Russian retreat, reinforcing discipline, and doubling down in Ukraine.

The regimes of Moscow and Iran are now seen as pariahs in most of the world because of their support from autocrats.

Since the beginning of his war in Ukraine, Putin has traveled to several countries other than the former Soviet Union. Russia is thought to have gotten advanced drones from Iran, and Iran is said to have trained Russian forces.

These are two regimes that, while very different in their ideologies, have much in common in their tactics of repression and their willingness to project power abroad.

Niloofar Hamedi first reported the case of Mahsa Amini in Iran’s prisons. Journalism is a very dangerous profession in Russia. So is criticizing Putin. After trying and failing to kill opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Putin’s people manufactured charges to keep him in a penal colony indefinitely.

The people of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Syria have a pretty good idea of the likelihood that the Iranian regime will fall. It would be transformative for their countries and their lives, heavily influenced by Tehran. Iran’s constitution calls for the spread of its revolution.

For the rest of the world, it’s a time of uncertainty and expectation. Seven months ago, some viewed Putin as something of a genius. That myth has been destroyed. The man who helped suppress the uprisings, entered the wars and tried to manipulate the elections now looks like he is in trouble.

Peter Bergen is a professor of practice at Arizona State University, vice president of New America and CNN’s national security analyst. Bergen is the author of “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” The views he gives in this commentary are his own. There is more opinion on CNN.

The Russian Revolution from Korea to Ukraine: The Story of Putin’s Ruins in the Cold Cold War and the Fall of the Soviet Union

The Ukrainian counteroffensive that has taken control of key pockets of Russian territory has only deepened Putin’s problems.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens were fleeing partial mobilization, and with his allies expressing concerns, an increasingly isolated Putin was once again making speeches in which he gave a distorted view of history.

His revisionist account is the basis for his rationale for the war in Ukraine, as he asserts that Russia has always been a part of it.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they planned to install a puppet government and get out of the country as soon as it was feasible, as explained in a recent, authoritative book about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, “Afghan Crucible” by historian Elisabeth Leake.

During the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the US was initially reluctant to escalate its support for the Afghan resistance, fearing a wider conflict with the Soviet Union. It took until 1986 for the CIA to arm the Afghans with highly effective anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, which ended the Soviets’ total air superiority, eventually forcing them to withdraw from Afghanistan three years later.

In 2022, American weapons are again playing a decisive role in Russian fortunes on the battlefield. At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the US was also initially leery of deeper involvement, fearing a wider conflict with the Russians.

The US put those concerns to rest quickly and American-supplied missiles helped the Ukrainians push back against the Russians.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was accelerated by the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan two years earlier.

He’s aware that the Russian loss in the 1905 war weakened the Romanov monarchy. Czar Nicholas II’s feckless leadership during the First World War then precipitated the Russian Revolution in 1917. Subsequently, much of the Romanov family was killed by a Bolshevik firing squad.

Lawrence Freedman, the emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London explains in his just-published book “Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine” how Putin plunged his countrymen into the Ukrainian morass.

The Russian empire was first dissolved as a result of the First World War in 1917 and again in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.

“First of all, we need to stop lying,” said Andrei Kartopolov, a former colonel-general in the Russian military and a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. We brought this up many times before. It seems it is not getting through to individual senior figures.

Kartapolov complained that the Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about incidents such as Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine.

Valuyki is located in the Belgorod region of Russia. Kyiv has generally adopted a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance when it comes to striking Russian targets across the border.

“There is no need to somehow cast a shadow over the entire Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation because of some, I do not say traitors, but incompetent commanders, who did not bother, and were not accountable, for the processes and gaps that exist today,” Stremousov said. Many people say the Minister of Defense could take his own life if he were an officer. The word officer is not very familiar to many.

Kadyrov had been reticent about naming Russian commanders, but after the retreat of Russia from the Ukrainian city of Lyman he has begun to do so.

Kadyrov blamed the Central Military District commander, Colonel-General Aleksandr Lapin, for moving his headquarters away from his subordinates, and failing to adequately provide for his troops.

“The Russian information space has significantly deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) that things are generally under control,” ISW noted in its recent analysis.

Kadyrov – who recently announced that he had been promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general – has been one of the most prominent voices arguing for the draconian methods of the past. He said in a post that he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia, if he had his way.

“Yes, if it were my will, I would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, because today we are at war with the whole NATO bloc,” Kadyrov said in a post that also seemed to echo Putin’s not-so-subtle threats that Russia might contemplate the use of nuclear weapons.

The Dramatic Night of Monday, April 29, 2016: U.K. strikes on the Kerch Straits and Zaporizhhia

Editor’s Note: Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a global affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The opinions are of his own. View more opinion at CNN.

Even amid irrepressible jubilation here in Ukraine in the aftermath of a massive explosion that hit the hugely strategic and symbolic Kerch Straight bridge over the weekend, fears of retaliation by the Kremlin were never far away.

The significance of the strikes in central Kyiv cannot be overstated. Western governments should see it as a red line being crossed on this 229th day of the war.

As of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained eerily quiet in between air raid sirens, with reports that three missiles and five kamikaze drones were shot down. (Normally at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers, and chatter of plans for upcoming weddings and parties).

On the same day as the Monday attacks, Zaporizhzhia, a city close to the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe, was hit with multiple strikes on apartment buildings. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

In a video filmed outside his office Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed that many of the missile strikes were aimed at the country’s energy infrastructure. At least 11 important infrastructure facilities in eight regions and the capital have been damaged; some provinces are without power, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

In an attempt to stay safe, residents of the northeastern city of kharkiv stocked up on canned food, gas and drinking water. Yet they also entertained themselves at the Typsy Cherry, a local bar. The owner of the business told The Times that the mood was cheerful. People drank, had fun, and wondered when the electricity would come back. (Power came back hours later.)

Indeed, millions of people in cities across Ukraine will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.

Just as many regions of Ukraine were starting to roar back to life, and with countless asylum seekers returning home, the attacks risk causing another blow to business confidence.

For Putin, the symbolism of the only bridge linking mainland Russia and Crimea cannot be overstated. That the attack took place a day after his 70th birthday (the timing prompted creative social media denizens to create a split-screen video of Marilyn Monroe singing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President”) can be taken as an added blow to an aging autocrat whose ability to withstand shame and humiliation is probably nil.

dictators seem to be fond of hardwiring newly claimed territory with record-breaking infrastructure projects. Putin personally opened the bridge by driving a truck across it. That same year, one of the first things Chinese President Xi Jinping did after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong was to connect the former Portuguese and British territories with the world’s longest sea crossing bridge. The road bridge had to be delayed for two years.

Putin, the KGB, and the Ukraine: The War against Russia and the Censorship of Security and Security for the Future of the Middle East

The reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was instantaneous: humorous memes lit up social media channels like a Christmas tree. Many people shared their jubilation with text messages.

For Putin, consumed by pride and self-interest, sitting still was never an option. He did it by unleashing more death and destruction with the force that likely comes natural to a former KGB officer.

It was also an act of selfish desperation: facing increasing criticism at home, including on state-controlled television, has placed Putin on unusually thin ice.

Roman Kravets, a Ukranian journalist, received a warning from the main intelligence director of the Defense ministry that by the year end, they would have to enter the peninsula.

It is important that Washington and others use urgent phone diplomacy with China and India to persuade them to not use even more deadly weapons, since they have some leverage over Putin.

Against a man who probes for weakness and tends to exploit divisions, the most important thing for the West right now is to show unity and resolve. Western governments also need to realize that rhetoric and sanctions have little if no impact on Putin’s actions. If they send military experts closer to the battlefield to speed up integration of high tech weapons, they need to continue to arm Ukrainians and provide urgent training.

It is necessary that high tech defense systems are used to protect the energy infrastructure around the country. With winter just around the corner, the need to protect heating systems is urgent.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/10/opinions/putin-russia-war-ukraine-strikes-crimea-bridge-bociurkiw/index.html

The Story of Ukraine: A Caricature of Russia and the West in a Small, Yet Deep, and Globally Unresolved World

Turkey and the Gulf states that receive many Russian tourists need to be pressured to come on board of the sanctions being imposed on Russia by the West.

On Monday state television reported on the suffering, and also flaunted it. It showed pictures of smoke and carnage, empty shelves and a long range forecast for freezing temperatures in central Kyiv.

The sharp shift was a sign that domestic pressure over Russia’s flailing war effort had escalated to the point where President Vladimir V. Putin believed that a brutal show of force was necessary — as much for his audience at home as for Ukraine and the West.

These before and after images of Ukraine have more in common than we might think. They are both caricatures based not on knowledge of the country or the people who inhabit it but on mythology. The mythology in Ukranian is shaped by Russia. Most people still don’t know what Ukraine is, whether they think of it as just like Russia or something else. After centuries of imperialist repression and decades of Soviet subjugation, Ukraine has a profound story to tell about the meaning of freedom.