What does Russia gain by recognizing the separatist regions in the Donbas as sovereign?

Question

If Putin's goal is to stop NATO expansion into Ukraine, then the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions doesn't help much - they are too small to provide a meaningful buffer. Also, there is a risk that the West will use the deployment of Russian troops to those regions as a justification to deploy its troops to protect the rest. Then make double-sure Ukraine becomes a member.

I don't understand what Putin gains from this move. Maybe he didn't have any better options (there's no chance of keeping the West out of the whole of Ukraine), but this move seems to basically force NATO to respond in kind, which is not beneficial to Russia.

Answer 1

Mostly a better starting position in the Russo-Ukrainian war of 2022. The decision to recognize the separatist regions was followed only 3 days later by a declaration of war (military operations in Ukraine). Since this was only a small step in the whole course of action and since the international diplomatic standing of Russia only decreased, I think there was no gain diplomatically and therefore the step was predominantly for military purposes.

Answer 2

The goal of Putin is to reduce or remove the sovereignty of Ukraine, as stated in his speech to the Russian people.

In his recent one hour long speech, the President of the Russian Federation (RF) Vladimir Putin addressed precisely this issue for the first half of the speech. He broadly outlined why Ukraine historically was "never" actually a full-fledged sovereign country. He proceeded with describing it as a "creation" of the leader of Russian Bolsheviks Vladimir Lenin, with additional bits of territory added to Ukraine by Joseph Stalin and by Nikita Khrushchev. President Putin also mentioned that the final push for Ukraine to become a separate country was provided by Mikhail Gorbachev. All of these actions were described by President Putin in negative terms. President Putin also accused Ukraine of the recently committed "genocide" toward the Russian speaking population, most notably in LPR/DPR, although not limited to it (Odessa, a port on the Black Sea, was mentioned specifically).

This speech, delivered mostly for the domestic audience, created the following possibilities for Putin:

• Recognize DPR/LPR and move Russian troops there (thus making the "unofficial" invasion of 2014 now "official"), per invitation of the leaders of DPR/LPR, to "protect" the Russian speaking population there (completed).
• Create multiple casus belli through Gleiwitz-style false flag attacks in DPR/LPR and Russia (completed/ongoing).
• Expand the invading forces beyond the currently held positions into the rest of the territory claimed by DPR/LPR, now held by Ukraine, engaging with the Ukrainian military in the process.
• Continue the invasion beyond the territory claimed by DPR/LPR, as far as 190,000 troops that RF has positioned at the border with Ukraine will allow.

Note that, other than the items marked with "completed", these represent only the available possibilities, not facts.

REFERENCES:

Путин выступает с видеообращением к россиянам. Feb 22, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQN0w4hS7_Q

If the video above is unavailable, just search for Putin's speech on Ukraine.

Answer 3

This is obviously conjecture since I am not a senior official in the Russian government and cannot speak on its behalf. Russia likely plans to disintegrate Ukraine (non-militarily). It's not out of the realm of possibility to have a plan as follows:

1. Position troops on border
2. Border states cooperate and ask for annexation in exchange for peaceful resolution
3. Move troops into new regions
4. Repeat from step 2 as Ukraine government becomes smaller each step and eventually caves

From an international point of view, there isn't really anything you can do if a state decides that it wants to become a part of another state (of course you can decline such an offer if it's your state they want to join). So the strategy is to coerce them into "voluntarily" joining the Russian state. A bloodless conquest.

Why this strategy works? You can pin the idea of interference into a sovereign state's internal affairs if you try to get between two nation's private agreements. Since Russia has not fired a shot, any retaliation would make them look like the defending party, justifying use of force. And of course, the third party isn't actually important enough for other parties to use military intervention. The third point is actually the idea here, Salami Tactics. No one is going to escalate to a nuclear war, so an offending party can make repeated small offenses just up until the threshold of retaliation.

Now the US probably recognized that this is going to happen, so they have preemptively started sanctions even without Russia firing any shots into Ukraine. But there seems to be some misinterpretation with the current situation in regards to NATO. For one, even Ukraine recognizes that the self-determination clause is a joke. Ukraine cannot join NATO simply because it wants to. Ukraine can only join NATO if it wants to any all of the other members of NATO want it to. Which obviously, is not the case (otherwise it would likely already be in). Second, notoriously trigger happy countries (e.g. USA) have clearly stated that they do not intend to send troops to Ukraine which means that in the case of an actual invasion, they will wait until the conflict reaches NATO borders, which Russia is well aware of and is why they are adamant on Ukraine staying out of the military alliance. The "retaliation" is ineffective at best. The reality of the situation is that countries like the USSR, Iran, and DPRK have almost always been under economic sanctions and learned to live with them as an economic reality. So announcing the worse that you're going to do is not a deterrent if Russia is prepared to live with those sanctions. Russia is also, of course, not new to western sanctions. Just like the other aforementioned countries, any gaps in economics can be filled by a not US aligned country like China or India. As can be obviously seen in the last couple of years, the US is even afraid to economically retaliate against China so sanctions against China for trading with Russia is not going to happen.

All in all, this is a pretty safe play, with the optics of being "peaceful" as the strategy doesn't require actually using your force, just projecting it by moving it around territories you control.