Ukraine update: Putin says occupied areas are part of ‘historical fatherland,’ threatens war on West

As of now (8:30 AM ET, 3:30 PM in Kyiv), Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is in the middle of his speech. As expected, Putin has announced the annexation of four areas of Ukraine into the Russian Federation. Also, he’s declared that Ukraine was always part of the old Russian empire, so Russia owns it anyway. He then announced that Russia was now open to negotiations—so long as Russia got to keep all the area it had claimed. It’s unclear from the way this was phrased if Putin means just the area now occupied by Russian forces, because it really sounds like he’s laying claim to the entire oblasts, cities and all, even in areas where Russia has never come close.

“I want the Kyiv government and their real bosses in the West to hear me,” said Putin. “Residents of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson are becoming our citizens forever.”

Putin then called on Ukraine to lay down arms, and realize that these territories are now part of  “their true historical fatherland.” Any fighting in these areas will be the same as fighting in Russia, and Putin declared that he would defend “our people” with “all the means at our disposal.”

Following this section, Putin hasn’t so much as mentioned Ukraine over the last 15 minutes. Instead, he’s been on an extended rant about the horrors of the West, which, says Putin, “wants to turn Russia into a colony.” According to Putin, he is the real voice of democracy and freedom, and it’s the West which mistreats people who disagree with authority (quick, someone get Alexei Navalny on stage for a comment). This was followed by a litany of crimes, including the bombing of cities in World War II. There was a special focus on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but bombing Nazi Germany was apparently also a crime that needed to be repaid. Also the Korean War, where apparently the crime was not allowing the north to win. Oh, and Putin slipped in that the United States “forces people to change gender” and gets them hooked on drugs.

Putin could easily give this speech at a Trump rally and gather a lot of applause.

As might be expected, Putin has devoted a good deal of the speech to claiming the West is “racist” because it is “spreading Russophobia.” A pretty good argument might be made that fear of Russia was caused by Russia continually invading and subjugating its neighbors. But apparently, Putin missed that point.

Eventually, after a prolonged generalized attack on the colonial, racist, undemocratic, forced gender-changing, Nazi bombing West, Putin also got around to a specific grievance—the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. It’s obvious that Russia bombed these pipelines to give itself another bloody shirt to wave, and Putin waved it. He blamed the sabotage on “Anglo Saxons,” which was followed by an extended attack not just on the U.S. and the U.K., but also on the AUKUS alliance. Shoutout to Australia!

Putin then spent some time talking about how Russia now has Europe right where he wants them, because “you can’t heat homes with paper Euros.” And without Russian gas, Europeans are going to be freezing, their economies collapsing, and then he darted over to how they’re practicing “outright Satanism.” If you were hoping that Putin would expand on that last point, prepare to be disappointed, because that’s the only Satan appearance so far.

From there Putin has swung full force into how Russia has to take action against the West. How it has to “lead the anti-colonialism movement” by conquering territory and making it part of Russia. Which may not be quite the way most people think of anti-colonialism. But Putin is being extremely forceful in statements that Russia doesn’t just intend to take Ukraine, but to crush the entire West.

“We need to turn this disgraceful page. Western hegemony will be smashed. This is inevitable. We must do this for our people, the great historical Russia.” Hopefully anyone who is cheering Russia for its anti-colonialism position is reading to the end of that sentence. 

Finally, Putin has stepped away from the microphone, and the actual paperwork for annexation is underway. The dutiful crowd—which looks to have been imported from a Brezhnev speech circa 1964—is clapping and standing at all the right points. 

As all this is going on, hundreds, if not thousands, of Russian forces, are engaged in either dying or being captured at Lyman.

As the first wave of the big counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast came to a thundering conclusion with the liberation of Izyum and Kupyansk, there were initial reports that Lyman had also been liberated, opening the way to a push into Luhansk. But it soon became apparent that Russia had positioned some of the forces fleeing from Izyum on the northern edge of Lyman. In the next few days, Russia pushed even more troops into the area, creating a line that was intended to block Ukrainian progress to the northeast. In Drobysheve, Lyman, and Yampil, Russia created a fortified location,  with some of their best remaining troops in position, backed by ranks of artillery, and roads from both north and east capable of bringing in supplies and reinforcements. Then they waited for Ukraine to smash against this anvil.

Over the last two weeks, Ukrainian troops have set outside this line, and they have launched attacks on the Russian forces inside. But that was only a small part of the overall Ukrainian action. The greater part of Ukraine’s forces in the area moved north along the banks of the Oskil River, then turned east, then turned south, approaching Lyman from the opposite side. Then, just two days ago, a second Ukrainian force launched a surprise advance across the Silverskyi Donets River, cutting off the supply lines to the east, and approaching Lyman from yet another angle.

On Friday, Ukrainian forces cleared Russian positions in both Yampil and Stavky. Russian troops in both those areas reportedly were unable to escape the tightening Ukrainian encirclement and instead retreated into Lyman. At last report, positions in Drobysheve had also been abandoned, though it’s not clear if Ukrainian forces had moved into that location.

Russian sources report that the forces inside Lyman—a number that ranges from 500 to 3,000 depending on the source—are now preparing an attempted breakout. A remaining Russian garrison at Torske had reportedly been instructed to hold the road open there for an attempted escape. Already a platoon of Russian forces has been seen making an unsuccessful attempt to flee into the woods north of the city.

Any attempt to withdraw is unlikely to be in any sense orderly. It may not even be possible. But if it’s going to happen, it has to happen very, very soon, or there will be no force remaining in Lyman to make the attempt. Considering the delay between events on the ground and reports trickling back through Telegram and Twitter, the battle of Lyman may have already been resolved. 

We’ll know soon.