The “referendums” organized by Moscow in the four partially occupied Ukrainian regions ended on Tuesday. Everyone, including President Vladimir Putin himself, knows that these referenda are even more bogus than the spectacle of the March 2014 Crimean “referendum” that led to Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
The results are therefore predictable: later this week the Kremlin will officially announce that the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson have “voted” to join Russia. Putin will no doubt comply with her request and sign the accession documents in a timely manner to give himself a present for his 70th birthday on October 7th.
The mobilization in Russia changes the game
The world will not recognize this sham vote, just as it did not recognize the robbery of Crimea. At best, that will be Russia’s client states like Eritrea and Syria, or internationally unrecognized territories like Abkhazia and South Ossetia (both of which were forcibly taken over by Russia from Georgia in 2008).
DW correspondent Konstantin Eggert
Putin may think Russians will be delighted to learn that he has just “rescued” more of their relatives from the imaginary clutches of imaginary “Ukrainian neo-Nazis” and made their country even bigger. But unlike the euphoria that accompanied the 2014 annexation, this time the Russians will pay little heed.
First, because Crimea occupies a special place in the post-Soviet imagination, which was hit hard by the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. Eastern Ukraine has no such symbolic meaning. Second, because the “referendums” are taking place against the background of what Putin officially calls partial mobilization, but which is essentially a general convocation in Russia. Hundreds of thousands of families must send their unprepared husbands to war and very likely to their deaths. Thousands are trying to help them escape across the rapidly closing borders.
The Kremlin has no choice but to quickly declare the occupied Ukrainian territories to be Russian territory and deploy the newly called up reservists there on a massive scale. Without them, maintaining these areas is very problematic for Russia. But now that the newly occupied territories are being declared Russian territory, Putin will claim that Ukrainian forces are invading mainland Russia. He will likely again threaten to use nuclear weapons (as he has regularly done since the invasion of Ukraine began in February) in order to obtain a delay in fighting, and perhaps even agree to some form of negotiation.
Putin is forced to act quickly before the inevitably soaring death toll and injury toll shakes Russian society.
Putin’s desperate move
This is a desperate and risky plan. The Ukrainians will not withdraw from Donetsk or the other three regions. Putin must either push them back with conventional warfare or carry out his threat to use short-range nuclear weapons (sometimes incorrectly called “tactical nuclear weapons”). This will provoke a US response with “appalling” consequences, as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently said.
The 2014 Crimean plebiscite was a spectacle staged by a ruthless and cynical victor. In 2022, the situation is completely different. Putin’s “referendum” ploy today looks like a half-hearted attempt to show strength and resolve, despite the apparent lack of both. No matter how long the war goes on, these fake polls will soon be forgotten.
This text was adapted from English by Felix Steiner
