With the recognition of the two "people's republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk, Vladimir Putin has jettisoned the 2015 Minsk agreements, which have been the basis of all negotiations to de-escalate the conflict.

These two entities are not independent, they are under the control of Moscow.

Therefore, it is de facto an appropriation of Ukrainian territory by Russia.

The announced deployment of Russian troops in the areas underlines this.

That must be the signal for the EU to immediately impose the announced tough sanctions on Russia.

If, contrary to what the Russian leadership obviously expects, it doesn't, Putin will see it as an encouragement to press ahead.

No one should breathe a sigh of relief that instead of starting a major war against Ukraine, Moscow is only allowing the existing conflict in the east to escalate.

For one thing, it is not certain whether Moscow will leave it at that or whether it will continue to fuel the conflict with Ukraine.

Putin's threats towards Kiev in his speech on Monday evening make that seem likely.

The two People's Republics claim the entire territory of the old administrative regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, but control only a small part of it.

This can result in battles where no one can predict whether they will remain local.

nuclear escalation

On the other hand, Putin spoke about the possible further course of an escalation that extends beyond Ukraine: He claimed that Ukraine wanted to become a nuclear power again with foreign – i.e. Western – support.

This is nonsense.

Rather, it is true that Russia broke the security guarantees given to Ukraine in 1994 when it voluntarily surrendered its Soviet nuclear arsenals.

But the truth does not matter to Putin.

The assertion that a “genocide” against Russians is taking place in Ukraine also has nothing to do with reality.

Nevertheless, he uses it as a reason for taking parts of Ukraine's territory by force.

Putin's statement must be seen in the context of last weekend's exercise by the Russian nuclear forces.

A statement made by Putin's former placeholder in the presidency, Dmitry Medvedev, at the National Security Council meeting on Monday also belongs in this context.

He referred to his experience after the recognition of the areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which had broken away from Georgia, after the war against Georgia in 2008 and explained that the tension would gradually cool down again after the recognition of the People's Republics.

The West would then naturally come back to Russia to talk about “strategic security”.

With this, Medvedev not only confirms all those critics of western Russia policy who saw a mistake in the rapid normalization of relations with Russia and the "reset" in Russian-American relations shortly after the Georgian war.

It is a thinly veiled threat to the West that says Russia is willing to use its nuclear potential as an argument to get Europeans and Americans to talk about its demands.

The catalog of these demands presented in December affects all of Europe.

Putin made that clear again in his speech on Monday.