Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered troops to be sent to eastern Ukraine.

The units are to ensure peace in the “Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics”, which Moscow now recognizes as independent states, according to a decree signed by the Kremlin chief late Monday evening in Moscow.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Putin had previously decided to recognize the separatist areas in eastern Ukraine as independent states.

This decision is overripe, Putin said in a speech to the Russian people that was broadcast in the evening.

He asked the two chambers of the Russian parliament, which will meet in special sessions for this purpose on Tuesday, to support the decision and ratify cooperation agreements with the two republics.

The contracts would be presented in the shortest possible time.

Putin justified his decision with alleged attacks by Ukraine on the so-called "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The nationalist and neo-Nazi “regime” that came to power in Ukraine as a result of the “coup d’état” in 2014 has no other solution to these conflicts than violence.

Putin called on the Ukrainian leadership to end the alleged hostilities immediately.

Otherwise, she bears full responsibility for all further bloodshed.

A Western "colony with a puppet regime"

Chancellor Olaf Scholz had previously warned Putin against recognizing the "people's republics".

Such a step would be "in blatant contradiction" to the Minsk agreements and would be a "unilateral breach" of these agreements by Russia.

After a council of EU foreign ministers, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell threatened Moscow with the consequences: "If there is recognition, I will put the sanctions on the table and the ministers will decide." He wants to convene the ministers to make this happen could.

However, several diplomats pointed out that Borrell had not discussed his surprise advance beforehand.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel jointly said: “The Union will respond with sanctions against those involved in this illegal act.

The situation in Donbass took up the smallest part of Putin's speech in the evening.

He said that Ukraine was created by Russia.

He portrayed the Ukrainian state as completely controlled from outside. The country was a Western "colony with a puppet regime" in which a policy of "forced assimilation" was being pursued against the Russian-speaking population.

In his speech, Putin claimed that Ukraine was striving for nuclear weapons with foreign support.

She has the prerequisites for this because of her Soviet heritage.

In fact, at the end of the Soviet Union, part of the Soviet nuclear arsenal was stored on Ukrainian soil.

The country surrendered these weapons in exchange for guarantees of territorial integrity from the United States, Britain and Russia in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

In reality, Ukraine does not aspire to nuclear weapons.

Putin's speech was preceded by a special session of Russia's National Security Council in the afternoon, which he chaired.

During the televised meeting, Putin said there was no longer any prospect of implementing the Minsk agreements to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The recognition of the areas is closely linked to global security issues.

Because "Using Ukraine as an instrument of the conflict with Russia is of course a serious, very big threat for us," said Putin.

At the meeting, Putin also said that US President Joe Biden had stated that there were no plans to admit Ukraine into NATO “tomorrow”.

A moratorium is also possible for Biden, because they think Ukraine is not ready today.

But that is “not yielding to us,” Putin said to the Americans, “but simply the realization of your plans.

You think that we should wait and prepare Ukraine for NATO membership.” That is not how America is accommodating Russia.

The Security Council includes the ministers who are important for security issues as well as the heads of the secret services and security authorities.

At the meeting, which resembled a staging, they all spoke out in favor of recognizing the “people's republics”.

Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said that only negotiations with "the United States" made sense for Russia.

“Everyone else will do what the US says.

NATO, the OSCE, the EU and so on.” Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said about a concentration of Ukrainian troops in Donbass that Kiev was either aiming for a “provocation” or a “violent solution”.

Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev suggested to Putin at the Security Council session that the "people's republics" should not be along the current line of contact,

First Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs, Vyacheslav Nikonov, said that in this variant of recognition, Russia might "urge Kyiv" to evacuate the territories.

There is also the variant, Nikonov said, of not defining the borders of the “people's republics” at all, thus showing that the latter are “considered to go beyond their own borders”.