Putin’s plans revealed after the special operation: Russia will greatly expand
Referendum in South Ossetia as a hint at the future of Donbass
The epicenter of the geopolitical clash between Russia and the West today, as you know, is the Donbass. But the signal that this epicenter is waiting, perhaps in the very near future, came not from Donbass itself, but from a completely different border of Russian borders. President of South Ossetia Anatoly Bibilov said that after April 10, this republic, once part of Georgia, will hold a referendum on its entry into Russia.
The presence of plans of the leaders of South Ossetia was not talked about before either. But at first official Moscow could be described with the phrase “not yet”. However, this time Tskhinvali (that’s the name of the capital of the republic) noticeably gets a green light. Senator Andrei Klimov, who is close to the highest Kremlin spheres, spoke about Bibilov’s plans with emphatic benevolence: “There are no manifestations of a legal nature to realize the old dream of the inhabitants of South Ossetia to become part of the Russian Federation.”
The expansion of Russia at the expense of a small republic with a population of 53 small people, what will change in the big geopolitical alignments? From which side to look. And you need to look from this side. The referendum in South Ossetia will create a second precedent after a similar expression of will in Crimea. The expectation of this precedent is not repeated for a long time.
At the famous meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on February 21, an equally famous dialogue took place between Vladimir Putin and the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin. Putin: “So tell me: yes or no?” Naryshkin: “So I say: I support the proposal to enter the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics into the Russian Federation.” Vladimir Putin: “We don’t talk about it, we don’t discuss it. We are talking about recognizing their independence or not.” Naryshkin: “Yes, I support the proposal to recognize independence.”
I have good news for Sergei Naryshkin. Now we (in the sense – the top Kremlin leadership) “are talking about it, we are discussing it.” Both the “independence” of South Ossetia and the “independence” of the DNR and LNR (in the case of Abkhazia, everything is somewhat different) have always been to a large extent a political fiction, a legal plot, a targeted head-on collision between Russia and the West and the introduction of new seizures against Moscow. Now this gasket has ceased to perform any useful function. A head-on collision with the West is already taking place, all kinds of possible sanctions have either already been introduced or will be introduced.
With a significant increase in the excessiveness of the game of “independence”, it became indistinguishable from the assessment of hanging heavy bolts on the stable door, because of which a horse left a hundred years ago.
Of course, the source of surprise is that it was decided to start getting rid of the “political fiction” from South Ossetia. Tbilisi discovers Moscow’s move, to put it mildly, not very happy. Why, against the backdrop of an unfinished special operation in Ukraine, to aggravate relations with Georgia, a country that refused to join the anti-Russian sanctions? Then it looks like the Kremlin seems to be backing the signal: we don’t care! If you want – be indignant – enter membership. There will still be no sense from this for you, but there may well be harm.
I will take one more step forward in penetrations. The political signal of the Kremlin described by me above to the state power of Georgia was “read on Putin’s lips” even before it was sent. Let us recall, for example, in what speeches Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili motivated Tbilisi’s refusal to participate in anti-Russian sanctions. Making efforts for the interests of winemakers and unwillingness to distract from tourism, the head of the Georgian restriction directly accused the opposition of wanting to “repeat the tragedy that we could not avoid during the August 2008 war.” In short, Georgia is now run by very “understandable” people.
Who else from foreign countries should seriously think about whether it is time to acquire a similar “understanding”? The obvious contender is Moldova, with its ongoing Transnistrian conflict since 1992. Since Putin has taken up the “defrosting” of frozen samples, how can he lose about ammunition, which contains more than 200 thousand citizens of the Russian Federation?
Yes, today Pridnestrovie does not have a direct border with Russia – only with the Vinnitsa and Odessa regions of Ukraine. But this is today, and who can, what will happen next? Shortly after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, Putin very clearly formulated:
Am I getting ahead of myself too much? I’m definitely running. The main negotiator with Ukraine from Moscow is now no exception, Vladimir Medinsky, the Russian army in the Donbass. The possible course of events depends precisely on the “diplomatic talents” of this negotiator. But for now, we are not talking about what will happen tomorrow, but about the plans of official Moscow for this tomorrow. Let’s see if there is a gap between the two concepts.