Putin also has had his eyes on predominantly Russian-speaking borderlands, the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. He backed a separatist movement in these regions in 2014 that resulted in a bloody civil war, and on 21 February he formalised their effective annexation by declaring them independent republics and sending in Russian ‘peacekeepers’. The response by American President Joe Biden, which has so far been limited to some tepid (but growing) sanctions, will no doubt lead to comparisons with arch-appeaser British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
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