Much less has changed in Ukraine than the west would have you believe – it is what happens next that matters

Russian special forces and proxies have long been operating in Luhansk and Donetsk, even if their presence was not officially acknowledged, writes Mary Dejevsky

Vladimir Putin addresses his Security Council (Sputnik)

Maybe I wasn’t catching the mood correctly. But it seemed to me that, even as Washington and London denounced Moscow’s recognition of Ukraine’s two rebel regions as just the first stage in what would become an all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine – a prelude perhaps to the biggest conflict in Europe since the Second World War – a rather different note sounded through. It was a note of triumphalism, vindication, even “Gotcha!”

Here was Russia, with its demonic president, Vladimir Putin, gratifyingly conforming to what western hawks have long regarded as its malign “pattern of behaviour”. Within hours, the United States and a good part of Europe started to wheel out the sanctions they had been hyping for weeks (largely to disguise the fact that they were not prepared actually to fight for Ukraine).

In the UK, the House of Commons felt free to indulge in a veritable orgy of Russophobia, and the government could finally set about some serious bashing of Russian oligarchs and banks – well, three oligarchs and five banks, actually – as though the opportunity had simply not been there before.

A solemn Liz Truss, her Russian geography gaffe forgotten, sat at her desk, union jack behind her, signing the orders into effect. The Balts and the Poles offered their “told you so” messages to the world’s airwaves. Even the conflict-averse Germans joined in, with chancellor Olaf Scholz embracing the heaven-sent chance to halt Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline that was a source of contention in his three-way coalition. The long-forecast Russian invasion of Ukraine, all seemed to have agreed, was finally here.

Or was it? Is it? And how much has really changed between this week and last? In one sense, the answer might be everything; in another, though, it is very little.

What has certainly changed – and how! – is the public approach of the Kremlin. What we saw on Monday was not a continuation of any supposed “pattern of behaviour”. It appeared, rather, to be the snapping of Putin’s patience. Less than 24 hours after the US, the Europeans and Russia had all seemed to be on board for a French diplomatic initative and a new US-Russia summit, Putin was in effect ripping it all up.

The Kremlin is hardly known for either the speed or the openness of its operations. But within the space of a day, President Putin had held a televised meeting of his Security Council, soliciting on-camera support from key ministers for his new direction. He had delivered a long and sometimes angry address to the nation, in which the arch-villains included Lenin (quite a departure, this), Stalin, and today’s Ukraine. He had signed twin decrees recognising the independence of two chunks of Ukraine, which have been fighting for autonomy, if not actual independence from Kiev, for the best part of eight years. And he had prepared the order for Russian troops to enter those regions as “peacekeepers”.

The immediate and most significant effect of all this was to annul at a stroke the only framework there has ever been for bringing peace to eastern Ukraine – the Minsk agreements, which were painstakingly negotiated with Ukraine and Russia by France and Germany, but never really came close to being implemented.

The central point of the agreements was to keep Ukraine together as an integrated sovereign state, and Russia’s signature amounted to its recognition of Ukraine’s independence and statehood. So long as the Minsk agreements remained an aspiration, there was still a chance that the rebel regions of Luhansk and Donetsk could one day be reintegrated in a united, but perhaps more decentralised, Ukraine.

That said, Moscow’s recognition of the DNR and LNR, as they style themselves, does not change nearly as much as the drama surrounding the decision might suggest. The Minsk agreements have long been a dead letter. Russian special forces and proxies have been operating in the two regions for some time, even if their presence was not officially acknowledged. And despite western countries rushing to impose sanctions on Russia, citing an invasion, neither is it clear that Russian troops have crossed into the two regions, whether in the guise of peacekeepers or in any other capacity.

So while regular Russian troops crossing into these two regions could certainly be regarded as an “invasion” in legal terms, given that Ukraine’s internationally recognised border would have been crossed, it is still unclear when or even whether that will happen, and even if it did, how much would actually change on the ground. The territory has been in the hands of pro-Russia rebels, and outside Ukrainian government control, for eight years. A formal Russian presence could bring a certain clarity, however unwelcome that clarity might be to Ukraine.

This is why what comes next is crucial. If no Russian troops arrive, then there will have been no invasion, and Putin’s announcement on recognition will have done no more than kill off the already failing peace process. If Russian troops are ordered in, that will mark the territory as enemy-occupied. The political and military situation will be pretty much as it is now, but it will take on a more permanent character.

What would mark a real change would be if Russian troops crossed the so-called “contact line” between Kiev-held and rebel-held territory in a move to capture the roughly two-thirds of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions that remain in the control of Kiev government forces. And if they did, might they then make a grab for Kiev and the rest of Ukraine? Then we would indeed be contemplating the all-out invasion that US and UK officials have been warning of for some time, with all the dangers it entails.

A further possibility is that Russia moves from recognising the two regions as independent to incorporating them into Russia – “at their request”, of course – on the model of Crimea in 2014. A slip of the tongue by Russia’s intelligence chief at the Security Council meeting suggested that this could be on the cards, although he was upbraided by Putin for his “mistake”.

That said, however, rebel leaders in the two regions have petitioned Moscow on several occasions in the past eight years to be incorporated into Russia, and have always been turned down. It seemed to suit Moscow better to leave the two regions as awkward neighbours for Ukraine – in the manner of other “frozen” conflicts left over from the collapse of the Soviet Union – rather than risk taking in a ruined rust belt with an impoverished and discontented population that could fuel instability on Russia’s south-western flank.

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Which leaves the question of why Russia seems so suddenly to have changed its approach to the two rebel regions, given that the decision – in itself – changes little, and the response from the Kiev government has so far been muted. Indeed, the attitude of the rest of Ukraine towards the rebel regions has long been conflicted. On the one hand, it is a matter of patriotic pride not to lose a part of your territory, however difficult and small that part might be. On the other, many Ukrainians elsewhere in the country regard those of their fellow countrymen who are resisting Kiev as being stuck in a Soviet mindset that has no place in today’s Ukraine. They can’t quite bring themselves to say good riddance, but they come pretty close.

There could, though, be another – more interesting – reason for the Kremlin’s sudden change. Having fielded a large military force on Ukraine’s border – less to intimidate Ukraine than to extract security concessions from the west – and made little progress, Moscow may have felt that it had to do something to end what was becoming an increasingly dangerous stand-off. Recognising the LNR and DNR as independent could have been seen in Moscow as the least risky option.

Sending in regular troops as “peacekeepers” could also, paradoxically, help bring some sort of order to a situation around the “contact line” that has become more volatile in recent weeks, and has carried the risk not just of escalation, but of triggering a wider war. The considerable downside is that, if the west behaves as though what has just happened is the start of a full invasion, rather than the least Moscow felt it could do to save face, then Putin might just decide that, rather than the minimum, the maximum scenario of all-out war is the way to go.