MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin saved an anxious world guessing about whether he plans to invade Ukraine, asserting on Monday that he would decide by the tip of the day whether to recognize the independence of two breakaway areas of Ukraine.
With Russian state media issuing an ominous drumbeat of unsubstantiated stories about aggression by Ukraine — which U.S. officers have warned Moscow would use as a pretext for a navy intervention — Mr. Putin used a televised assembly of his Security Council to declare {that a} peace settlement for the Russia-backed separatist territories was in impact useless.
His subordinates, all of whom favored recognition, used the assembly to blame the United States for the escalation in tensions. Still, Russia’s international minister stated he was prepared to meet his American counterpart for talks this week in Geneva.
America’s objective in its international coverage, together with in Ukraine, is “the collapse of the Russian Federation,” Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Mr. Putin’s Security Council stated. “The people of Ukraine are against this,” Mr. Patrushev stated of the nation’s pro-Western path. “They’re being scared, they’re being forced to take this path.”
The United States and its allies have apprehensive that if Moscow acknowledges the 2 enclaves, within the area often called the Donbas, it might open the door for Russia to transfer extra forces into Ukraine. U.S. officers estimate that Russia has amassed 190,000 troops in and round Ukraine, together with within the Donbas, the place a long-running trench conflict between Ukrainian forces and the Russia-backed rebels has reignited in current days.
Underscoring the likelihood that he would possibly recognize the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic as impartial states, Mr. Putin chided his international intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin when he appeared to be equivocating on the difficulty, prompting Mr. Naryshkin to stutter after which say he was in favor of annexing the territories.
Edging towards the twilight of his political profession, Mr. Putin, 69, is set to burnish his legacy and to appropriate what he has lengthy considered as one of many best catastrophes of the twentieth century: the disintegration of the previous Soviet Union. Asserting Moscow’s energy over Ukraine, a rustic of 44 million folks that was beforehand a part of the bloc and shares a 1,200-mile border with Russia, is a part of his purpose of restoring what he views as Russia’s rightful place among the many world’s nice powers, the United States and China.
By signaling that he would possibly recognize the 2 breakaway areas, Mr. Putin continued to construct strain on Russia’s smaller neighbor. His efforts have been helped on Monday when Belarus instructed that Russian forces deployed there for navy workouts would possibly stay indefinitely.
The announcement that he was open to contemplate discussing a potential recognition of the 2 areas got here after the United States stated such a transfer could be a violation of a peace settlement with the self-declared territories.
Mr. Putin, talking at first of a gathering of his Security Council, stated it was “clear to all that this range of measures is not going to be implemented in any way,” he stated, referring to the peace settlement, often called the Minsk agreements. But he stated Russia had been attempting “to resolve all the complexities.”
Mr. Putin stated the Security Council would additionally contemplate additional steps associated to his calls for for “security guarantees” from the United States and its allies, similar to a rollback of the NATO presence in Eastern Europe and a legally binding pledge barring Ukraine from ever becoming a member of the alliance.
The United States has described Russia’s foremost calls for as nonstarters, however expressed a willingness to talk about different safety points, similar to missile placements.
Russia has sought to painting itself as a protector of ethnic Russians dwelling in each the separatist territories, however the United States and its allies have accused Moscow of looking for a pretext for a potential invasion of Ukraine.
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