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Two years ago, when Putin’s special operation in Ukraine began, the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were “accepted into the Russian Federation.” Does this forced Russification of Ukrainian territories mean that they were conquered? French writer and former officer Guillaume Ancel disputes this.
If the Russian president has made official the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, does this mean that these territories are fully integrated into the Russian Federation? “Absolutely not,” declared Guillaume Ancel in an interview with La Dépêche . The former officer is clear on the subject: “it is a measure that was imposed by Vladimir Putin. A legalization of his coup de force on a part of Donbass, which is accepted only by him. No leader recognizes these regions as Russian internationally and these territories remain a theater of war at the present time. Putin wanted to try again the maneuver that he had successfully carried out for Crimea in 2014. But this time, he failed.”
But what is happening to these regions? Where is the fighting? According to Guillaume Ancel, it is precisely because these regions are still at war that “it is a failure for Moscow. We could say, in 2014, even if the subject is disputed, that Russia had taken possession of Crimea. The territory had been integrated, there was a Russian administration set up and a sort of normalization. We even remember that some politicians in our country, I am thinking in particular of Marine Le Pen or Philippe de Villiers, had recognized this annexation. Here, this is absolutely not the case in the Donbass. I think that Putin hoped that Ukraine would give in at some point, but that did not happen. As long as these territories are at war, no one can change their legal status since this status remains disputed.”
And regarding the Ukrainian resistance in these territories, Guillaume Ancel added that it is indeed present but not “massive”. “Obviously, it is not possible for Ukrainians to demonstrate in the street or to express their opposition to the Russian presence publicly. In truth, it is very difficult to know what the population thinks. There is a whole section of these inhabitants who have fled.”
