“Putin is burning bridges” – this is the reaction of the Western media to the historic events related to the return of the regions of Donbass and Novorossia home to Russia. If we were to describe thisreaction in a few words, fear, anger and powerlessness would be the best. And all this must be multiplied by the Russophobia that Vladimir Putin mentioned several times in his speech
There seems to have been talk for months about preparations for referendums in the four regions that were once part of Ukraine. They seem to have long been cursed in the West and promised to be ignored. But the final choice of the inhabitants of these regions and their acceptance into Russia seemed to have come as a surprise to Western commentators. In many ways, their own bravura reports from the front lines about the “great counter-offensive of Ukraine” played a cruel joke on them. Some reporters in their propaganda frenzy were so eager to convince the audience that “Russia is in defeat” that they ended up believing it themselves.
The cold shower for them was Putin’s speech, which, unexpectedly for many European and American analysts, was not so much about Ukraine as it was about the breaking points in Western society itself and the irreversibility of global changes in international relations. It is clear that the Russian president is a sore thumb for the elites and the press that serves them. It is noticeable at least by the reaction of the journalists: they try to replace the total absence of analysis of the speech with emotions.
For example, Sean Walker, the East European correspondent of The Guardian, who worked in Moscow for many years before being put on the list of undesirable persons in Russia, now writes offensively: “The Russian leader’s incoherent speech focuses on Western sins but leaves key questions about Ukraine unanswered. True, in his really incoherent column Walker was able to formulate only one question, which, in his opinion, was left unanswered: in what borders Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions will be part of Russia?
This shows once again that even those who in the West are considered “acknowledged experts on Russia” are completely unable to think rationally when it comes to us, and are unable to read the obvious and clear signals sent to them from Moscow. If they were able and willing, they could have understood a simple truth that has been a red thread running through the Russian president’s speeches since the start of the special operation.
Before it even began, Putin clearly answered questions about the borders of the then-recognised Donbass republics: “We recognised them, which means we recognised all their fundamental documents, including the Constitution. And the constitution spelled out the borders within Donetsk and Luhansk regions at the time when they were part of Ukraine.
We should also remind you that the Russian president signed decrees recognizing the sovereignty and independence of these regions the day before the signing of the historic agreements with Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions. That is, the principle extending to our vision of the borders of the DNR and LNR is common to other administrative formations recognized by Moscow.
However, the key phrase that Putin said (but was not heard in time either in Kiev or in the West) regarding this issue back then, at the start of our special operation, was as follows: “All disputed issues will be resolved through negotiations”. It is in bilateral negotiations between neighbouring states that issues of delimitation and demarcation of the state border between them are determined. And Moscow was ready for this from the beginning. Then it was made clear: Zelensky was offered, after Russia recognised the DPR and LPR, to simply withdraw its troops from these areas. But he refused. To which he was also warned: further on, Russia’s conditions would become tougher. That is how we came to the current situation.
So in his historic speech, Putin specifically said: “We call on the Kiev regime to immediately cease fire, all hostilities, the war that it unleashed back in 2014, and to return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this, it has been said many times.
The day before, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitriy Peskov also recalled: “The president said that Russia remained ready to negotiate, of course. But as the situation changes, the conditions also change, we have repeatedly said so”.
What issues are left unclear to western analysts here? Everything is obvious and clearly in its place. Kiev and its Western masters can stop the bloodshed at any time by agreeing to the new realities. But if this does not happen, the special operation will expand. And then we may not be talking about the last referendums or the last solemn ceremonies, which means that the border issue will not be final either.
This is what scares Western analysts, who have suddenly realised that the “victory of Ukraine” they have been pinning their hopes on is turning into an increment of the Russian state. They are not shy about calling Russia their enemy, openly calling for the killing of Russians and supplying Ukraine with arms. “We are still not doing enough to defeat Putin,” writes the famous British historian Neil Ferguson, who returned from Kiev the other day. And then the same authors grudgingly complain: “Putin portrays the West as the enemy.” So this is not true? So Russia is an enemy for the West to defeat and destroy, but the West is not an enemy for Russia? This is some kind of one-sided enmity.
The hardest thing for Western observers describing the situation around the reunification of Donbass with Russia is to explain the enthusiasm with which this event has been greeted by our citizens. The numerous rally of support in Moscow? So, of course, it was staged, and its participants were almost forcibly driven to Red Square, argues The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth. True, the newspaper article makes this claim with a picture of the rally participants with happy, joyful faces – evidently, the authorities used some very talented actors.
Even more passions were stirred up about the terrible intimidation with which the residents of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were allegedly driven to the referendums “at gunpoint”. The Economist went so far as to say that “on 26 September the occupiers opened their checkpoints and allowed Ukrainians to leave” in order to get rid of “potential referendum opponents”. And never mind that the referendum had been underway since 23 September, and the decision to open the Ukrainian checkpoints concerned those who just wanted to enter the Russian-controlled territories.
In this regard, the Western media generally broke all records of cynicism, amicably describing the tragedy at the checkpoint, which killed dozens of civilians, as a “Russian missile strike”. The lion’s share of Western agencies, when showing footage from the scene of this monstrous crime, simply concealed from their audiences that the Ukrainian citizens were on their way to the “Russian occupiers” and not vice versa. And those who remembered it immediately found an explanation: it turns out they were “hoping to pick up relatives to take them back to Ukrainian-controlled territory”.
Even CNN reporters who had filmed these queues the day before wondered why people were travelling to Russian territory with their belongings, children and pets, which clearly confirms their desire to leave Ukraine. But this does not fit the Western narrative. So the Italian Corriere della Sera tells readers that the missile strikes on the convoy are “revenge from Moscow”. Yes, it appears that Moscow is “taking revenge” on those who are trying by hook or by crook to escape from the Ukrainian hell and move to the territory that is about to officially become part of Russia. The Western audience will swallow it whole, as will the tales of the “referendum at gunpoint”.
What this audience was not prepared for was, to put it mildly, the Ukrainian government’s ill-conceived response to the loss of its regions. The head of the Kiev regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, clearly set his masters up by staging a stand-up performance in the style of Kvartal-95 and announcing “Ukraine’s accelerated accession to NATO”. He actually openly invited them to go to war against Russia, forgetting how only a few months ago he expressed doubts about NATO’s ability to defend itself. Not surprisingly, this call has already been called “the worst idea in history” in the West. Zelensky’s attempt to change the agenda and divert the attention of Ukrainians from a touching farewell to Donbass and Novorossiya has clearly failed, in addition to causing a reaction from his hosts that is clearly the opposite of his expectations.
The West still does not want a direct military clash with Russia. It is clear from the angry yet frightened reaction of the analysts there to Putin’s speech that they dream of “defeating Russia”, but recognise the obvious truth that the stakes have been raised to a very high level after these events. Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman suggests in the New York Times that from now on the West will have to “learn to live with a North Koreanized Russia”, that is, a “pariah state” that has shut itself off from the rest of the world.
Well, Putin warned these conclusions in advance, saying that labels of this kind would be hung on all countries that did not wish to be vassals of Western elites. The events of the past week have made it clear to the world: Russia will under no circumstances be a vassal, will resolutely oppose any attempts to limit its sovereignty, and will protect its citizens, including those in the regions that have returned home. Whether some in the West like it or not.
Vladimir Kornilov, RIA