Like many of her friends, Tatyana, a barista at the fashionable Moscow coffee-shop chain Skuratov, was glued to the screen of her mobile phone as Vladimir Putin addressed the nation.
“Usually, I don’t watch television, especially when our president speaks. But I felt like I had to tune in this time. I was witnessing history in the making,” she said, smoking an e-cigarette. “But I am not sure yet if history is going in the right direction.”
The day after the Russian leader’s late-night speech, in which he recognised the independence of the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk, Muscovites were digesting what Putin’s decision could mean for them and their futures.
While he ended his address by “congratulating” fellow Russians on the recognition of the two territories, a celebratory mood was absent in the capital, with many fretting about the political and economic consequences his decision might have.
“If the recognition brings peace to the region, fine, why not do it,” said Andrei, a regional director at a large logistics firm in Moscow. “But it is already costing me money. I have invested a lot of my savings in shares of Russian companies.”
The self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk are two territories run by separatist governments widely seen as Russian proxy states inside Ukraine. Since 2014, they have been in conflict with Kyiv, which refers to them as “temporarily occupied territories”, similar to Crimea. They have received military and financial backing from Moscow since they declared their existence after the Ukrainian revolution in 2014.
The territories cover an area of about 6,500 sq miles and were primarily known before the war for their heavy industry and coal mining. Donetsk, the largest city, previously had an international airport and hosted matches during the Uefa Euro 2012 championship. The fighting has destroyed the airport and left the territories, mostly cut off from the rest of Ukraine, in a dire economic state. The borders with Russia remain open.
What are their relationship to Moscow?
On 21 February, Vladimir Putin said he would recognise the separatist-held territories as independent states. Up to that point, at an official level, Moscow saw the territories as part of Ukraine, though in reality they were fully controlled by Moscow. It is not yet clear whether the Russian president will extend his territorial claim to the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk not already until his control.
Who are the people there?
Leaked documents suggest there are just under 3 million people remaining in the territories, 38% of whom are pensioners. That’s less than half of the pre-war population. Public opposition in the territories is near non-existent. It has become extremely difficult for independent journalists to go to the region.
How many troops are there?
It is not clear how large a force is present. Ukraine has claimed there are 35,000 military personnel, 481 battle tanks, 914 armoured combat vehicles, 720 artillery systems, and 202 multiple launch rocket systems. According to Rochan Consulting, however, those numbers could be “overestimated”.
Russia’s financial markets sank to their lowest levels in more than a year on Tuesday, after Putin ordered troops into the two territories the previous day. The country’s markets have been extremely volatile of late, with major state banks like Sberbank having lost more than half their value since the start of the Ukraine crisis.
As Putin was delivering his address, the Russian independent TV channel Dozhd posted a live feed of the country’s rouble sliding to a near two-year low.
“I think I can wave goodbye to my holiday to Turkey in March,” said Andrei, 41, referring to the decline of the national currency.
Some in Moscow, however, found genuine joy in Putin’s move to recognise the self-proclaimed republics, in what they saw as a long-overdue decision by the Russian state. “Bless Putin! He is finally taking the Donbas under our wing,” said Galina Gromova, while waiting for a bus in central Moscow.
Gromova, a high school geography teacher, said she was “horrified” by Russian state media reports of the Ukrainians shelling the Donbas and felt “enraged” by Kyiv’s “genocide” of the local population. The west and Kyiv have criticised such reports as “fake news”, saying Moscow was creating a pretext for an invasion.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a political analyst and senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, said there was no expectation that Russians “would rally around the flag” after Putin’s speech in the same manner as when the country annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, after which Putin’s approval ratings reached heights of 89%.
“Crimea was an absolutely unique event in which Putin practically had the backing of all parts of society,” he said. “But the country is much more split on the future of the Donbas.”
He pointed to recent data collected by the independent Levada Center pollster, indicating that 53% of Russians would want the two regions recognised as independent or as part of Russia, while 26% saw the future of the region with Ukraine. The remainder of those polled, 21%, were undecided on the issue.
In Kolesnikov’s view, how the Russian public will ultimately perceive these events will depend on what the Kremlin decides to do next.
“Many will welcome the scenario in which the situation calms down after yesterday’s recognition of the region,” he said. “Russians do not have an appetite for a real war with Ukraine, it is currently not a militarised society.”
US intelligence continues to stress that Russia is planning a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, while Putin’s latest impassioned speech – with its attempts to rewrite Ukraine’s history – will further fuel fears in Kyiv. But there is also some hope that Putin will not embark on a major military campaign in Ukraine, fearing the unpredictability of what a significant war on the European continent could entail.
“The Kremlin gains domestic legitimacy from confrontation with the west, as long as bullets aren’t being fired,” said Prof Samuel Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London, whose research examines Putin’s sources of popularity. “Actual war brings uncertainty and we do not know how it will play out in public opinion or on the battlefield,” he added.
Whatever Russia’s next move is, Britain on Tuesday imposed sanctions on five Russian banks and three high net-worth individuals and, even more worryingly for the Kremlin, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he would not certify the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Parts of Russia’s business elite said they were now preparing for the worst. Its leaders were once among Putin’s biggest supporters but have been sidelined over the years, as Putin has increasingly surrounded himself with the so-called siloviki, security men, many of whom served in the KGB.
“I was slightly shell-shocked when I watched the presidential address, my hair stood at the back of my neck,” said a veteran banker at a private firm, speaking by phone on condition of anonymity. “It’s finally sinking in amongst many around me how bad the situation is,” the banker sighed.
“This looks like only the start of a very bumpy long road.”
