With these referendums, the Russians are saying: We can’t beat them, so let’s claim their territory, and hope for the best.
That, in effect, is what Putin is having his puppets in the Russian-back Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk do.
Russian-installed leaders in occupied areas of four Ukrainian regions set out plans for referendums on joining Russia, a move Ukraine dismissed on Monday as a stunt by Moscow to try to reclaim the initiative after crushing losses on the battlefield…
In a post on social media addressed to Putin, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, wrote: “I ask you, as soon as possible, in the event of a positive decision in the referendum – which we have no doubt about – to consider the DPR becoming a part of Russia.”
(Reuters, September 20, 2022)
Doubling down because it can’t win and now has little nothing to lose
The whole world has been watching in shock and utter contempt as Putin executes his “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine. After all, the only thing this mission has “accomplished” is to turn Russia into a pariah state. Hell, even North Korea is more respectable and acceptable on the world stage these days…
In the process, though, it exposed Russia’s once-vaunted military as little more than a band of marauding, pillaging, genocidal maniacs – who abuse women and children but hightail it and run when confronted by military men (and women).
Of course, this is hardly surprising – given how Putin’s personal chef was caught on tape recruiting prisoners. For he is seen luring them not just with the promise of freedom if they survive six months of service as cannon fodder, but with the permission to “rape Ukrainian women and men” as part of their “honorable” service to boot.
Sure enough, Russian fighters have proven so incompetent, Putin’s operation has failed all of his stated military objectives – as British chief of defense staff Adm Sir Tony Radakin assessed two days ago.
War crimes alienating even Axis partners
More to the point, with over 34,000 war crimes cases already logged and mass graves being discovered every day, everyone is all too mindful that Vladimir Putin seems hell-bent on doing – first in Crimea and then in Ukraine, what Adolf Hitler did – first in Sudetenland and then in Poland.
He wants Russians to think of him as Putin the Great emulating Peter the Great (just reclaiming territory for Mother Russia). Never mind that his fascistic behavior – complete with Z-swastikas – give them greater reason to think of him as Vlad the poisoner emulating Adolf the gaser (just exterminating innocent men, women, children)!
Indeed, some of us warned about this fateful symmetry when Putin annexed Crimea 8 years ago. In any event, no matter what they say they think of him today, most Russians are bound to be dancing on Putin’s grave sooner than Iraqis began dancing on Saddam Hussein’s…
And nothing portended his fate quite like Putin being subjected to the public humiliation of having his own Axis partners variously snub and rebuke him last week at their Shanghai Cooperation Organization annual summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Indeed, I suspect that political humiliation is what prompted him to orchestrate these referendums. Because even he can see the writing on the wall:
- It’s only a matter of time before Ukrainian forces run Russian forces out of all Russian-back regions in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Those referendums are patently contrived, indeed absurd. Nonetheless, Putin wants to be able to claim those as Russian territories when he’s forced to negotiate a peace settlement. But this is rather like a burglar killing half of your family members and stealing half your belongings; and then expecting the court to enforce a plea bargain by having you split the belongings he stole with him.
This is what Putin’s propaganda, projection, gaslighting, and genocidal invasion of Ukraine has wrought. But, despite his reckless bombing around Ukraine’s nuclear plants, as well as his willingness to use energy as a weapon of war, I suspect his Shanghai buddies (namely Xi of China and Modi of India) made it clear to him that, if he’s MAD enough to use nuclear weapons, even they would consider him toast…
Ukraine is not intimidated, even less deterred…
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian forces advancing on Luhansk and Donetsk are clearly saying to the Russians holding these referendums what the Ukrainians defending Snake Island famously said to Russians aboard the ill-fated Moskva, and I’ll paraphrase:
- Russian referendums? Go fuck yourself!
In fact, the Ukrainians insist they will not stop at Luhansk and Donetsk, but intend to reclaim Crimea too. And at this point, nobody, least of all Putin himself, has any reason to doubt them…